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A CrrV BACK YARD. 




NEAR A STATE CAFITOL. 



LITTLE GARDENS 

HOW TO BEAUTIFY CITY YARDS AND 
SMALL COUNTRY SPACES 



CHARLES Mf SKINNER 

AUTHOR OF 
NATURE IN A CITY YARD, FLOWERS IN THE PAVE, ETC, 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1904 



LIBRARY nf CONGRESS 
Two eoDles Received 

MAY 7 1904. 

Cepyrtcrht Entry 

a^.j ^^ iqpdr 

CLASS a- XXo. No. 
COPY B 



.^A 



^.^ 



Copyright, 1904, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Puhlished May, 190!, 



PREFACE 



There are many books on gardening for the 
few who have large estates, and few, if any, for 
the many who have small ones. This volume is 
designed for the uses of the family whose lands 
are a house lot. It is not a manual; it is not a 
grammar upon the science or subject of small 
gardens; it is a series of hints and suggestions, 
which may be unendingly diversified. The 
writer has drawn upon his own experience for 
most of his material, and on his imagination for 
his plans, but he has taken the word of authori- 
ties on some matters respecting the plants to be 
used, since it is not within the fortune of people 
who cultivate small gardens to acquire a close 
acquaintance with all the flowers that can be 
grown between the thirtieth and the forty-fifth 
parallel. City yards are usually dusty, weedy and 
neglected, the theory of their owners being that 
It is not worth while to cultivate patches of 

V 



LITTLE GARDENS 

ground so small. The need is the greater be- 
cause of their smallness. There is so little natu- 
ral beauty in the town that we can not afford to 
neglect the chance to extend it. All the world 
smiles in the fields, and we have only to go to 
them to share their cheer; but the smile of a 
flower in the little well among the bricks and tim- 
ber, that we call a yard, sheds its brightness 
where it is needed most. 



VI 



CONTENTS 



I. Making Ready 

II. The City Yard 

III. The Country Yard 

IV. Color .... 
V. Flowers in their Season 

VI. The Choice of Flowers 

VII. The Wild Garden 

VIII. Shrubs .... 

IX. Water in the Garden . 

X. Decorative Material 



PAGE 

I 

24. 

81 
113 
123 

144 
205 
213 

226 
235 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



A City Back Yard near a State Capitol . Frontispiece 

Results in a Contracted Domain . 

A Garden and Something More 

On the Outer Edge of a City 

Roses in Profusion 

A Window in Ohio 

Shade and Bloom 

Beds of Lettuce 

A Window-box and Ampelopsis 

A Pleasing Vista . 



FACING 
PAGE 



30 

64 
64 
92 
1 26 
158 
158 
188 
218 



Diagrams of Yards, on pages 28, 32, 41, 43, 50, 51, 53, 
57, 59, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 77, 78, loi, 
102, 104, IC5, 108, 109, 115, 214, 231, 238, 



LITTLE GARDENS 



MAKING READY 



Men are becoming so notoriously addicted 
to their own society that they miss a good many 
improving and pleasant companionships. They 
are forgetting what soil looks like, in the cities. 
Think of it! In Manhattan only a hundred 
homes or so are built in a year, and the number 
grows less and less, while tenements multiply by 
thousands. For the millions there is no ground: 
only asphalt and flagstones; and miles and miles 
of thoroughfare have not the shade or color re- 
lief of a tree. Some pathetic show of the primi- 
tive need and lingering instinct for good green 
earth is made in the window-box that we may 
see on the sill of a fourth-floor front, or in a 
geranium striving out of a tin can on the fifth- 
floor back. Nay, in summer I can show you 

I 



LITTLE GARDENS 

where tomatoes are growing in soap boxes, on 
the fire-escapes : but this is where Itahans inhabit, 
and they are thrifty. 

Notwithstanding these hardships, the predic- 
tion of the scientists that in the year 2000 every- 
body will live in New York, and the last morsel 
of its soil will disappear under a load of masonry, 
is destined not to be fulfilled. A few positive 
atoms will continue to escape the magnetism of 
the metropolis and try to bear with life as it may 
have to be lived in suburbs like Philadelphia, 
Boston, Minneapolis and Hohokus, where, at 
this writing, it is still the fashion to occupy a 
house, and to have a yard. Much virtue in 
yards. It is for the moral and mental sanity, 
no less than for the bodily well-being of the citi- 
zen, that he shall go to the earth, now and fre- 
quently, to renew liking and confirm kinship 
with other and more delicate forms of life than 
his own. He may be slow to read the lessons 
that are published in the leaf and flower, and 
may not want to read them after he knows they 
are there; but in occupations under the sky he is 
taken away from a hundred artificial distresses 
that beset him under the ceiling; for happiness 

2 



MAKING READY 

is largely dependent on the physical state, and 
that is never at the best in the shop, the office, or 
the drawing-room. It is, then, worth while to 
have a yard, and use it, if only to forget stocks 
and crimes and bills and government. If the 
victim is disposed to tempers, he can wreak them 
on the weeds, the time never having been, nor 
destined to be, when his yard will be free from 
these vegetable upstarts. And the cleaner he can 
keep it from these intruders, the more ample 
his self-complacency, and the more his enjoy- 
ment of its acquired and natural scenery. 

And one can do a surprising deal with his 
yard if he will tend it with affection and humility. 
Why, if it came to a tussle with hard fortune he 
could partly outwit adversity by selling his flow- 
ers and raising vegetables. Don't cry out upon 
me. If you have ever farmed one, you know 
that I speak within bounds when I say that out 
of an ordinary city yard you could grow enough 
to keep a family for a month. The family might 
complain a little, and would probably desire 
to exchange some of the crop for eggs, dairy- 
products or champagne, yet there would be va- 
riety. You should have asparagus, lettuce, cel- 

3 



LITTLE GARDENS 

ery, tomatoes, corn, beets, peas, beans; for a 
warm day, a cucumber; for a cold one, a pepper; 
and quite likely, a few berries, with such dande- 
lions as grew wild in the interstices of your yard 
for greens. 

Again you say. Preposterous! No, for I 
can lead you to a yard behind an old house in 
the city that is occupied by a mechanic, and I 
can show his farm in operation. He will be 
glad to have you look at it, for it is a source of 
pride with him. He works in a shipyard, where 
they are raising only hob, at present, and he has 
only his evenings and early mornings for farm- 
ing, yet not only has he all the green stuff he 
requires in the season, but he has some to give 
to the neighbors, and I testify to the excellence 
of his lettuce and his celery. His domain is some- 
thing like fifty feet by twenty-five. But, then, he 
cultivates it like a Chinaman, and every foot of 
it is a possibility. 

Which brings me to say that when you own 
a yard you need not devote it to cabbage, unless 
you are pinched by want and addicted to corned 
beef. On the contrary, you can make that yard 
a spot of such charm that the neighbors' boys 

4 



MAKING READY 

will continually beset it, to gather of its opulence, 
and lovelorn cats will sing o' nights in its shrub- 
beries, secure from observation and projectiles. 
And when I speak of yards I have in mind, not 
the spacious lawns and gardens of the country, 
but the strip behind the city house that is giv'en 
over, on wash-day, for the sunning of the family 
linen, with the revelations of anatomy and thrift 
that pertain to that necessity. The yard in town 
is deplorably small, I admit, and grows smaller, 
for the canny builder, who used to apportion a 
house to every lot, has fallen into a habit of put- 
ting three houses on two lots, and there are rooms 
where a man does not carelessly stretch himself 
without peeling his knuckles against the wains- 
cot on either side of him. As a distinguished 
observer has observed, you can always tell a Har- 
lem dog from one brought up in Brooklyn, be- 
cause the Brooklyn dog wags his tail from side 
to side, while the Harlem dog, bred to the re- 
straints of flats, wags his up and down. 

We will take the Brooklyn, rather than the 
Harlem measure for the human habitation, and 
consider, briefly, what may be done with its 
pleasance. Let us, then, suppose a space of 

5 



LITTLE GARDENS 

ground in the usual row, divided from the other 
spaces by a board fence six feet high, overlooked 
by hundreds of windows In the row of which 
your house Is part, and in the other row, on the 
next street. If there are breaks in the enclosing 
wall of residences, that let your eye escape to- 
ward fair or misty horizons, so much the better 
for you, and so much the more likely that a spec- 
ulator will fill them, presently, with taller and 
more obstructive mansions. Your yard measures, 
say, twenty-five feet by sixty feet, and In that 
space we can not look for much variety of soil 
or climate, although a yard of less than that di- 
mension, that I cultivated for a while, had the 
most various soil that I ever worked In. It was 
a joy to the archaeologist, for it contained hoop- 
skirts, false teeth, bird-cages, bones, rocks, tin- 
ware, Indeed, I hoped to reach mastodons, but 
I came no nearer to that discovery than to up- 
turn a pet turtle who had buried himself in a bed 
of cannas, and had overlooked his customary 
day for resurrection In the spring. 

And so long as variety In topography and 
natural products is denied to your yard, I would 
take the hint: conform to circumstances and try 

6 



MAKING READY 

not to make it too excitingly variegated. Don't 
attempt an Italian garden on twenty-five feet by 
sixty. Don't build terraces, or flights of steps, 
unless the land slopes, or plant all the different 
things that the seedsmen's catalogues offer. 
Keep to a simple scheme. Indeed, it is a mighty 
pleasant yard that has just grass in the middle, 
and roses all around. The trouble is that 
roses will not bloom forever; and again, most 
folks do want a little versatility in their crops. 
And all the same, I grow more and more to be- 
lieve in a certain amount of formality in a gar- 
den. Proper division of the space at your dis- 
posal gives the best results, because you practise 
economy. The wald garden is a joy when there is 
enough of it; but a back yard left to whatever 
happens to grow there is unsightly, and if you 
throw about a quantity of seed of wild flowers, 
and let them come up without tending, the result 
is not much better. There will be no color har- 
mony in your arrangement, for there can be no 
arrangement, and the plants will choke one an- 
other. We may enjoy wild life, but we do not 
decivilize our homes for that reason. We would 
not fill our parlors with the lumber of the woods, 

7 



LITTLE GARDENS 

precious as It might be to us in the camp, or even 
the country cottage. The garden is a part of the 
house, and a part of us. 

Let us, then, agree that we can not represent 
all outdoors in the oblong behind our house; 
hence, we will lay it off in a way to please the eye 
and nose and understanding. We have, of 
course, to consider sun and shade. If the house 
is on the north side of the street, the yard will 
be more constantly in shadow than if it were on 
the south side. (I am humbly supposing that 
this Work is not circulating in the southern hemi- 
sphere.) The shadow cast by the house may 
spread half across the yard; hence, the flowers 
that like the sun will not do their best close 
to the building, but will ask to be bedded as far 
from it as possible; yet this does not mean that 
you are doomed to have no vegetation near the 
house. Why, it would be worth while merely 
to raise ferns and moss. 

If yours is the usual city yard, and not shaded 
by monster hotels, flats, factories or shops, it 
should have the sun, however, in the summer, 
when you need it least and your plants need it 
most. And a plant that can have, say, five or 



MAKING READY 

six hours of bright sunlight, has nearly all it 
needs for health. It must have a good soil, and 
If your garden-to-be Is caked over, you must 
spade It up. Many yards In town have a hard 
and leathery surface, like that of the plains In 
the days of the overland trail. The plains had 
been crusted by the beating feet of buffalo. They 
were almost as if asphalted, and no vegetable life 
appeared there except sage and cactus, with grass 
and cottonwoods only in the river-bottoms. 
When these desert lands were broken by the 
plow they proved to be rich in phosphates. It 
may be that the like will happen in your yard. 
But it was no buffalo that pounded your soil into 
the semblance of clay: It was wilder and more 
fearsome beings — the boys next door, and Mary 
Ann. We have to consider these dynamic forces 
in devising our garden, but we have first to spade 
and fertilize, cut the sod to pieces, throw out the 
stones and tomato cans, prepare strings or trel- 
lises for vines, and plan the beds. Drainage, too, 
and prevailing temperatures must be thought 
upon. By drainage Is meant such as results 
from the porousness or heaviness of the ground, 
and the natural slope of It. You can not do much 

9 



LITTLE GARDENS 

in respect of artificial drainage in a yard, because 
it is just lilce tlie follcs next door to complain, if 
you pipe your rain and melted snow into their 
premises. Nor is it usually so wet in the East 
as to require the services of an engineer in lay- 
ing out a yard. So long as rain-water or thawed 
ice do not lie In pools on the surface, there Is no 
occasion to trouble yourself about this matter. 
If your yard has a solid rock foundation at a 
depth of only a few feet, or If it Is stiff and 
clayey and sheds moisture, then It will probably 
be necessary to have In an expert. Your veg- 
etable is a thirsty creature, and commonly your 
yard will not only drink all that the heavens pro- 
vide, but will ask an occasional showering at 
your hands, but this supposes that It Is growing in 
a light and fertile soil; not In one that is covered 
by stagnant puddles for days after a shower. 
Beware of these puddles. Mosquitoes breed In 
them, and mosquitoes carry malaria. If the soil 
is stiff It Is easily possible to give a wee slant to 
the surface of the yard, trenching It slightly at 
the center, or at one side, or toward a far corner, 
and where the water Is deepest to install a con- 
nection with the drainage system of the house, 

lO 



MAKING READY 

or with the sewer, direct. Indeed, modern build- 
ers provide this, and you will doubtless find, in a 
hollow, somewhere about the premises, the head 
of an iron pipe, grated or colandered, to pre- 
vent the escape through It of stones, leaves and 
grass. Keep this free at all times, unless you find 
that your plants appropriate and need all the 
moisture they can get, for in that case, the less 
of the precious water that flows away, the better. 
And while upon this subject, let me urge you 
not to neglect the watering of your floral charges. 
Have a hose, or at least, a watering-can, against 
the droughts so usual to our summers, and re- 
fresh your garden in early morning or at evening. 
Nature's method is not to wet the earth when the 
sun shines. To that end, it overspreads us with 
clouds when It rains. I do not actually know 
that watering In full daylight hurts a plant, 
though florists assure me that It does, but it is 
best to do the sprinkling toward dusk, for the 
reason that it Is most economical to do so, the 
evaporation being less, and the plant getting the 
whole benefit of the ducking. It Is better to 
water the yard once a week, and give a thorough 
drenching to It than to dribble a few quarts over 
II 



LITTLE GARDENS 

the plants every evening. Gardeners all deplore 
light watering, and it has this disadvantage : that 
It does not give to a plant what It wants, any 
more than a spoonful of drink slakes thirst; that 
under a merely superficial moistening the roots 
that should strike deep, in search of moisture, 
thereby holding the plant firmly in its place and 
giving it lease of life through the winter, may 
turn to the surface, and thus give but a shallow 
foothold. So we must regard our plants as reg- 
ular topers, whatever their simplicity of coun- 
tenance. But I have found that a hasty trip 
about one's yard in town with a watering-can, 
if not a rapid turn with the hose, is good prac- 
tise, for the reason that a city is a dusty place 
and the object of the sprinkle is not to give drink, 
but to wash the plants free from dust, that they 
may breathe the better. There is something 
pitiful, something wrong, in the aspect of a rose 
or lily powdered with grit or fragments or street 
droppings, and something unseemly in the cover- 
ing of bushes with fragments of straw and spots 
of dirt. The retention of heat by the enormous 
spaces of brick and stone in a city, and the giv- 
ing off of that heat through the night is Inimical 

12 



MAKING READY 

to the " falling " of the dew that so cleanses and 

refreshes vegetation in the country. Dew is 

merely the condensation of moisture in the air, 

and is caused by contact of the air with the 

cooled surfaces of the earth. As the dew is less 

in town, the evening sprinkle takes the place of 

it. But while watering should be copious once 

or twice a week, it must not be overdone. In 

a wet " spell " it is not necessary at all. If our 

plants exceed in food and drink, they will grow |1 

fat and not fine; that is, they will run to stem 

and leaf, and their blossoms will be few, or 

atrophied. What's that? They are like some 

human beings, then? 

In his hunger for the soil, that develops when 
a man — or his wife — acquires a bit of yard, there 
is a tendency to demand more of it than it can 
give; to be overgood to it, expecting impossible ||| 

returns; to spoil it, as we do some children. It 
is a real delight to play the hose over our garden 
at sunset and see it brighten under the mimic 
rain. How fresh and fair it looks, when we 
have done ! Yet it can be harmed with too much 
drink. Plants that are too much coddled grow 
dim and weak when the coddling is foregone for 

13 



LITTLE GARDENS 

a while. One other item : Go over the ground 
with a rake, or a hoe, if it shows a tendency to 
harden and pack down, so that the water may 
reach the roots ; even a spading or troweling may 
be necessary in resistant soils; but be careful not 
to cut the rootlets and not to heavily jar the 
plant, for that may shake off its flowers, or dis- 
place it, or at least break some of its stems or 
branches. 

But we are getting a little ahead of our 
plants. We haven't them, yet. Our first work 
is to loosen the soil, and as you will have trouble 
in getting a horse and plow through the base- 
ment, the work will require to be done with a 
spade. By a fair output of profanity and in- 
dustry, men have been able to spade up a yard 
in a day, and even to do a little work, between 
whiles. If you move in during the late summer 
you can not do much toward the improvement of 
your premises. Buy some showy things from the 
florist, set them out and let it go at that. Let 
the youngsters rollick over the ground. Heaven 
knows they have little enough of play space in 
the city! If you have children of the playful 
age, forego the garden, and occupy the yard 
14 



MAKING READY 

with toys, swings, seesaws, and sand-heaps. If 
a garden is possible, however, prepare for it in 
the fall, with a spading, taking dry weather for 
the digging, and pulling out all the big and 
troublesome weeds before they go to seed. Be 
sure to do this work while the ground is dry: 
otherwise the soil can not be easily loosened up, 
and the weeds that you overturn will be less apt 
to strike their roots back into the earth than if 
they and the earth were wet. This rule holds 
in plowing and harrowing, where they are prac- 
tical, quite as well as in spading. After the soil 
has been turned over, it is to be raked level, lawn 
grass-seed is to be sprinkled over it, and it is 
then to be rolled — you can hire the rolling and 
need not buy the machine to do it with — after 
which, the flower-beds are to be laid off in the 
spaces not assigned to grass; trees and shrubs, 
if any, are to be planted, and a little later, bulbs 
are to be set out for spring flowering. 

As the chances are that the yard has been 
putting up vegetation, in the form of grass and 
weeds, for several thousand years without much 
encouragement to continue in the work, it be- 
hooves the thoughtful house owner to feed it 

15 



LITTLE GARDENS 

with manures. He can, if he must, wait till the 
snow is about to fall, so that the sight and odor 
shall be quieted beneath the white of winter; yet 
it is better to be brave and endure. You can use 
phosphates, guano, poudrette, bone-dust and 
higher-sounding things than these, but there is 
nothing better than hennery and stable manure. 
Never use it fresh, for the ammonia is then over- 
powering, and will burn your plants, and put 
you out of favor with the family next door. It 
must be old and well rotted in the compost heap. 
The manure, of whatever kind, is to be stirred 
into the ground on a second spading or raking. 
If plants or trees are standing in the yard during 
this process no harm is likely to come to them 
from stable manure, but the chemical fertilizers 
are sometimes so sharp that moderation must be 
used in applying them, and it is well not to have 
them touch the roots of the plants. If the yard 
is so large, and so open to the street as to admit 
of plowing, the manure may be strewn over its 
surface after that operation, and then harrowed 
or raked in. Odorless manures are much in 
favor for city use, but for actual value they will 
never replace the stable sweepings and decayed 
i6 



1 



MAKING READY 

leaf-mold from the woods. They are expensive, 
too, and they are sometimes adulterated with 
sand and plaster. As to special enrichments, for 
certain plants, I opine that there is much non- 
sense in that notion, and that the common ma- 
nures are good enough for all the plants that 
grow. During the winter the roots will be ab- 
sorbing food, and should show vigor in the 
spring, but if the soil is poor, if there is a time 
of darkness and sour weather, or if any disease 
of malnutrition takes hold on the roses and lilies, 
let them have a trifle of stimulant : a few drops 
of ammonia to a pail of water. Indeed, it is well 
to give a little of this at intervals, say, once a 
month, through the green season. 

Your farm can be worked with very little 
machinery. You will need a hose, with a reel 
to wind it on, a rotary nozzle for spraying the 
grass, and the usual tip, which throws a fine mist 
or a strong stream, according as you adjust the 
cock. You will require a lawn-mower, which the 
comic papers assure us is held in abhorrence by 
male suburbanites, and not always without rea- 
son, for the woman, in a cool and gauzy dress 
who sits on the veranda while the slave of the 

17 



LITTLE GARDENS 

lawn trundles about his Sisyphus burden, little 
realizes that by transforming the energy needed 
in " shaving the whiskers oft the earth," as one 
victim described it, the defendant could get him- 
self elected to a first-rate club or a second-rate 
board of aldermen — in neither of which positions 
does she wish to find him. I pushed a machine 
over a lawn in the country one morning, and was 
displeased to find that, hurry as I might, I could 
not finish before breakfast. I remarked that it 
was not a big lawn to look at, but it seemed to 
take a long time to get around it. " I've made 
a rough calculation of the distance it is around 
the lawn-mower course," observed the man who 
had not guided the implement that day, " and I 
find it is about five miles." Therefore, oh, 
dames, be tender of the suburbanite, for the 
comic papers are not. He has sorrows of which 
you little dream. But insist, on his mowing the 
yard once in a week, at any rate. You are also 
to provide him with a spade, a trowel, a sickle, a 
rake, a hoe, a pair of garden shears, a sprayer 
for insect poisons and a dibble. Perhaps you 
do not know the dibble, and it sounds so like a 
divvle that you may think it is something wicked, 
i8 



MAKING READY 

but it is merely a pointed stick which you jab into 
the earth — that is, the husband does — and ro- 
tates, describing a widening circle with its handle, 
while the tip remains fast. This digs a pit in the 
shape of an inverted cone, and digs it in two or 
three seconds, hence the dibble is useful in plant- 
ing and transplanting and in preparing places 
for sweet peas, flowering beans, and the like. 
An old shovel handle, cut off eight or ten inches 
below the grip, and sharpened, makes the best 
dibble. You can have it tipped with iron by 
the blacksmith. 

Most of the hay-crop in the yard will be gath- 
ered by the lawn-mower, but you will need the 
sickle and shears for trimming corners, borders 
and clumps of grass that spring up about the 
roots of trees and bushes. If the grass is suf- 
fered to grow long it will make troublesome 
snarls about the cogs and roller of the machine, 
which will tear it up by the roots, but, what is 
worse, your turf will be dry, harsh, stemmy and 
ragged, unless it is kept down; weeds, too, will 
gain a hold, sow themselves, and increase. By 
frequent cutting, the grass is kept tender, green 
and thick, because room is made for the young 
19 



LITTLE GARDENS 

shoots, and It is prevented from going to seed. 
Be careful of your grass. It is the surest and 
handsomest crop your garden will yield. Flow- 
ers last for a little and are gone; leaves unfold, 
flourish, wither and fall, but grass smiles up at 
the first breath of spring; it often lasts until the 
beginning of December, and when comes a Janu- 
ary thaw there it is, a trifle faded, yet still green, 
assuring us that winter is not the seal of death, 
but only a mask of life. Bright color has its 
cheer, and we plan our garden for it, but we 
prize it as an accent rather than a constancy. 
The blue of the sky and sea, and the green of 
the earth, are a delight forever. 

There is another than esthetic reason for 
giving a part of the yard to grass; namely, Mary 
Ann. It may be that Mary Ann has the same 
delight in art and nature that other people ought 
to have, and often don't, but surely no other peo- 
ple can smash as many porcelains indoors and so 
many blossoms outdoors, in any given time. I 
have seen a garden after a single promenade of 
this virgin, once out and back, that reminded me 
of a Kansas farm after a cyclone. You would 
have said that nobody could do the things she 
20 



MAKING READY 

did whose feet were smaller than dining-tables, 
and whose knees were unarmed with scythes, hke 
those attached to the wheels of the Greek battle 
chariots. Yet she came back into the house 
chortling a comeallyez and serenely unconscious 
of injury. If Mary Ann has grass to roll her 
feet upon she may be willing to let the flowers 
alone, or at least, to maim, behead and uproot 
only those that are nearest; and in our own in- 
terest, if not in hers, it behooves us to yield this 
point. If you have a roof or a laundry in which 
clothes may be dried, so that the usual Monday 
rejoicings shall not be manifest to the vicinage, 
Mary Ann may be persuaded to remain indoors, 
and horticultural possibilities thereupon widen, 
cheerfully. An offer to let her receive her cousins 
in the kitchen, every night, if those importunate 
relatives will visit by platoons and in turn, in- 
stead of by divisions and in mass, and a willing- 
ness not to inquire where the last butter, sugar, 
tea, coffee, flour and cider went, will sometimes 
make Mary Ann amenable to petition. So it is 
best to give that part of the yard to grass which 
is nearest to the house, and you need not consider 
Mary Ann altogether in this; because the views 

21 



LITTLE GARDENS 

from your back windows will be pleasanter If the 
flower-beds are at the back of the yard, where 
they can best be seen, and where they have the 
park-like preface of a lawn. 

If Mary Ann's feet have made appreciable 
hollows In your grass-plot, In their goings and 
comings, they can be filled in with light earth, 
and the lawn may be rerolled. A smooth and 
velvety lawn is a delight to the eye, look we 
never so lovingly on nature In the wild. Perfect 
grass is not to be grown overnight. In England, 
where you see It at Its best, they have a saying 
that, to make a lawn requires three or four cen- 
turies. We can make one in less time than that 
In our country, and you may see lawns of almost 
English beauty among the unvisited wilds of 
upper Manhattan. There are some estates In 
that forgotten quarter of the world, soon to be 
blasted and leveled and chopped and covered 
with flats, which recall the stately halls of Eng- 
land, not so much in their buildings as in the 
lovely settings of trees, vines, flower-beds and 
billowy or lake-like grass fields. 

After planting your lawn you will put in 
your bulbs — your crocuses, hyacinths, freesias, 
22 



MAKING READY 

jonquils, and tulips, and in placing them in the 
earth, as also in setting out your woody plants, 
your peonies and your fleur-de-lis, put a bit of 
old manure into each burial pit before placing 
your bulb or root there. After all is in place, it 
is well to cover your yard with a mulch of leaves 
or straw, if you live in the zone of long, cold 
winters, and in early spring, when frosts still 
threaten in our land, which has so little climate 
and so much weather, protect the young plants, 
if you observe a falling thermometer. This you 
may do by inverting pails, buckets or hardware 
over them, or by pegging down thick papers or 
paper bags, to be removed next day, or as soon 
as the sun shines. Still, plants are a deal tougher 
than they look, and the early ones, that the poets 
call fragile and tender, will defy weather such 
as will wilt a tramp. Your bulbs will throw up 
shoots while the nights are sharp, and will invite 
the insect with color and perfume while yet the 
insect is heavy with its chrysalis sleep. Then 
come the budding and the universal upspring, 
and from that time, through two-thirds of the 
year, your garden will be a place of beauty. 



23 



II 

THE CITY YARD 

That your estate of twenty-five by sixty may 
be a place of beauty, in truth, you will determine 
on the form of it in the fall, so that it may come 
into bearing early, and so that there may be no 
disfigurements and eliminations through the cor- 
rection of mistakes, after it is in flower. Let 
your lines and forms be simple and direct, and 
use color and foliage in masses, instead of in de- 
tached bits. Indeed, massing is necessary to sim- 
plicity. Put like with like, and aim for broad 
effects, rather than for diversity. Be formal 
rather than negligent, but do not carry formality 
to fantasy and grotesqueness. And here another 
problem offers: Shall we make a formal garden 
where all the surroundings are formal, or shall 
we seek to offset formality by lines of grace and 
freedom ? I grow more and more to believe that 
we must civilize our surroundings when we break 
away from nature so completely as we must in 
24 



THE CITY YARD 

town, and that it is a parody on nature rather 
than a reminder of her beauties when we attempt 
to illustrate the phases of the great world in a 
back yard. A formal garden enables us to utilize 
our space most fully; it exposes the whole yard 
at a view; it gives opportunity for the cultivation 
of a sufficient variety and of brilliant groups. 
Harmony is better esthetics than contrast, where- 
fore the fixity of the garden plan conforms not 
disagreeably to the stubborn architecture that 
hems it in. If the yard is a large one, then, in- 
deed, we may undertake to create some land- 
scape and to soften the environment, but it is 
hard to make a substitute for fields, woods and 
hills in a place where Mary Ann has been drying 
the clothes. The Japanese, it is true, have the 
country in little in a quarter of an acre; but that 
resolves itself, after all, into another phase of 
formalism. They have miniature gardens, moun- 
tains, lakes, lawns and forests; for by pinching 
off the roots of maples and evergreens they con- 
fine those trees to a height of one or two feet. 
They induce a dwarf habit of growth. I once 
owned a couple of cedars that were fifteen or 
twenty years old, and were less than six inches 

25 



LITTLE GARDENS 

In height. The Japanese landscape effects are 
on the same microscopic scale as these trees, and 
the seen-through-the-small-end-of-an-opera-glass 
gardens would not go well with four-story houses 
and the dust and ugliness of town. With the 
slight and pretty dwellings of the Japanese they 
are possible enough. 

If you are resolved on bringing nature into 
the town, it will signify that you are a man whose 
sympathies are not all for humanity, but have 
some reach into the world where gain and poli- 
tics are not; while this, in turn, will mean that 
you desire to be yourself, rather than to be other 
men, taking color from nature, rather than so- 
ciety; hence, you will esteem privacy, at least, 
somewhiles, and will seek rather to escape the 
observation of the precinct than to be the focus 
of it. Therefore, your first care will be to close 
yourself about with vegetation. If it is per- 
mitted, you will plant trees at the end of your 
yard, train a hedge of privet along the sides of it, 
and mask your house, back and front, with ivy, 
ampelopsis, honeysuckle or wistaria. You will 
live in a jungle, barely penetrable by pi*ying eyes 
and, I hope, as delightful as it is secluded; and 
26 



THE CITY YARD 

although you may reserve patches for flowers, 
the first aim will be to secure rich and concealing 
greenery. Now, the effect of space can be gained 
in narrow limits only by evasions and conceal- 
ments. If your whole yard stands disclosed, if 
nothing is suggested or left to fancy, if there is 
no mystery, it must of need seem small, and its 
charm will be that of accuracy. Our informal 
yard will require trees or bushes tall enough to 
break the prospect, and to that end we must plant 
them in sinuosities, instead of right lines. Also, 
it will be well to place the smallest near the house, 
for it is another rule in gardening, so far as gar- 
dening can be confined by rules, to bring the 
smallest near, where the eye would otherwise 
overlook them, and let the tall, strong plants 
speak for themselves at a distance. Thus your 
wilderness will recede in ever-heightening 
masses, the remoter growths suggesting the edge 
of a wood into which one might penetrate for 
more than — well, six or eight feet. Here, then, 
is a scheme to gain this effect: 

The yard is given over to grass, chiefly, for, 
as there is much shade, flowers will not bloom 
copiously; and, again, if you insist on flower-beds 
27 



LITTLE GARDENS 

in addition to so many shrubs and trees, the 
picture will be crowded and confused. There is 
not the least objection, however, to trellises en- 
closing the whole yard, and supporting sweet 
peas, trumpet-vine, passion-vine, honeysuckle, 



^S^^x^%&: 
















,,^^^^v«^ 






Fig. I. — I, 2, 3, Shrubs; 4, trees; 5, flower-beds. 



moonflower, morning-glory or climbing roses. 
Such vines need not encroach on the yard itself, 
and if they are carried to a height of eight or 
ten feet they will add much to the seclusion, both 
actual and apparent. If flowers of smaller habit 
are used, wild ones will better consist with your 
plan than tame ones. I am fond of the wild 
28 



THE CITY YARD 

things, and have grown them with success in a 
city yard, my golden-rod standing head high, 
with stems hke willow branches for girth and 
stoutness; my buttercups unfolding in a very 
cloud — hundreds of shining blooms; my daisies 
starring the perspective with copious silver; and 
I know a front yard, two minutes from one of the 
busiest streets in New York, that, in the season, 
is beautiful with wild asters. In the plan, the 
objects numbered i are hydrangeas, rhododen- 
drons or any other tough bushes that mark the 
beginning of the yard without too much exact- 
ness, and are not high enough to conceal those a 
little beyond. Those marked 2 are taller; weige- 
lia, black currant, syringa, rudbeckia or any such, 
while number 3 are higher yet: privet, lilac and 
shadbush. The forms marked 4 are trees, 
preferably pines, hemlocks, firs or spruces, if 
your yard has fresh air and is near the outskirts; 
if not, don't doom these children of liberty to 
the crowd; choose, instead, some deciduous trees, 
or even erect a narrow arbor, or a trellis, to extend 
across the end of the yard, and clothe it heavily 
with vines. Number 5 stands for flower-beds. 
The arrangement in this manner of planting, 
29 



LITTLE GARDENS 

which can be varied to any extent, has for its 
object the partial screening of the distance, so 
that the eye merely guesses at a beyond which 
isn't there, or is a different sort of beyond from 
one that you prefer to guess. The eye travels 
along a path that loses itself among syringas and 
lilacs, from whatever point near the house you 
may view it. The object of a path like that is 
rather to invite your eyes than your feet, for its 
windings suggest that it rambles on indefinitely. 
If your neighbor, dos a dos, falls in with this 
device, and will plant a few trees at the back of 
his yard, so that your forests adjoin one another, 
save for the fence (and if you are good friends 
that need no more stand in your way than if it 
were the constitution), your wild properties be- 
come almost impressive in extent. The objec- 
tions to the plan are that it is much broken — 
cluttered, the housewife may say — and that grass 
will not grow well under trees, for it demands 
sun; but it has the advantage that it offers medi- 
tative walks, and a chair or bench or hammock 
placed under the trees, or in the arbor, permits 
you to enjoy a book, or the cool and fragrance 
of the evening, or the warmth and perfume of 

30 




RESULTS IN A CONTRArrEI) DOMAIN. 



THE CITY YARD 

your cigar, in relative security against the hun- 
dred and Hfty eyes at the back windows. Your 
forest will require frequent trimming, for unless 
you keep the vistas open and remorselessly check 
the attempts of the lilacs to fill the whole yard, 
you will presently have to fight for admission to 
your own premises. A more serious objection is 
that children, strangers, and Mary Ann, who is 
a law unto herself, will by no means travel on the 
path, for it is human nature, and especially Amer- 
ican nature, and often a most excellent quality, 
to go straight to a designated object, considering 
grace and the neighbors not a whit; hence your 
path will be much neglected, and your grass 
much walked on. Even in parks, with police on 
duty as exemplars and enforcers of taste, people 
will take short cuts to save a bend. 

It is, therefore, with hesitancy that I suggest 
a still more radical but more conventional use of 
the curve. It is so completely artificial and 
against likelihood that I would hardly admit it 
here, were it not that I know people whose 
houses are only thirty feet back from the street, 
yet they must have a curved drive, in both direc- 
tions, to the front door, and a porte-cochere for 
31 



LITTLE GARDENS 



the shelter of visitors. Well, here is a double 
curve : the oval. Quite like a frame for a minia- 
ture, isn't it? 







Fig. 2. — I, P'lower-beds ; 2, trees and bushes. 

Mind, I don't say that this is pictorially bad, 
if I did make it myself, but only that it is un- 
American and impractical; that the young In- 
dians in the family, seeing their bat or ball where 
they dropped it, at the farther end of the yard, 
would make a rush for it, and would wholly 
neglect the appointed means of arriving. No- 
body would toddle around the oval but old per- 
sons, or guests whom you had invited to admire 
32 



THE CITY YARD 

the effect, and who were looking for more Im- 
portant favors In the future. But If there are 
no Indians, and no Mary Ann, the oval lawn Is 
rather pretty, don't you think? Unless you were 
to plant flowers In a smaller oval In the center, 
there Is no place for flowers inside the walk, and 
you must have grass. It Is the symbol and the 
proof of plenty. Our soft-breasted earth yields 
treasure to her children for the asking, yet never 
in such wise as when we cut the grass. For other 
crops are planted by men's hands; they have 
sown and watched and weeded; they have spent 
their strength In plowing, harrowing, watering, 
spraying before the harvest was to be gathered. 
But grass Is the world's freest gift, and the freest 
is often the finest, like the night spectacle of the 
stars, and the splendors of the sunset. Grass 
grows in the tropics, and the arctics, too. In the 
warm darkness, where the seed has sunk, strange 
chemistries go on : the grain of weightless matter 
has thrown out Its threads of white, to steady the 
blade It will presently send up and grip the earth. 
These blades, in multitude beyond the swords 
of all the armies, thrust aside the sand and stones 
and flourish, shining, in our sight. Wonder of 

33 



LITTLE GARDENS 

life, that the woody atom, dropped into a morsel 
of soil, has been able to take to itself, not only 
the warmth of the sun and the wetness of the 
rain, but the very substance of the planet, and 
make inert mineral turn green and breathe ! For 
herein is God ; herein is man to see his own contin- 
uance; here is the like of all greater creations, 
and the miracle in the spear of grass is not less 
than that of the revolving worlds. 

Have it near your eye; let it creep to your 
door; for this clothing of the globe is fair to all 
the senses. What wonder that the farmer, walk- 
ing in his fields, shines his content at his eyes 
when all about him is this urging and increasing 
life. It falls in his service without the coming on 
of bitterness. Each hillock of drying grass utters 
fragrance, and is a lure, instead of a reproach. 
Every blade has had its day and has come to the 
end of it in fulness of life and exuberance of 
spirit. It is charged with myriads of glistening 
atoms of silica, which have given strength to it 
to stand erect and hold its flowers to the sun. 
It is yet strong with the firmness of the rock. 
And that strength shall pass into the fleetness of 
horses; sheep shall eat and clothe us with the 
34 



THE CITY YARD 

warmth that the grass has borrowed from the 
summer; meek-eyed cattle with sweet breaths 
shall return it to their masters in food and drink. 
And the grass-blade has a power, that we have 
not, to feed upon the ground. We of dainty 
stomach need that others shall live first, and give 
their lives to us. It is, then, no less a moral law 
than a law of nature that we shall fulfil destiny 
by giving of ourselves for others, even like the 
grass. We stand firmest and highest when we 
stand alone, yet our service is for all, and accord- 
ing as we stand apart we have the more fertility 
to give. In this again we are as the grass. We 
are not as if each were an entity; we are only 
of the type ; but as we increase, so shall the type 
prevail. Like the grass, we must convert the 
dark and hard to brightness. The lesson is some- 
thing obvious, yet in heeding it we obey the law, 
not merely of a conscience, but necessity. There- 
fore, again, let there be at your doors a plenty 
of grass for your eye and your inner understand- 
ing to rest upon. 

It is a law in landscape-gardening that a path 
is to bend only to accommodate itself to the lay 
of the ground: to go around a knoll, or avoid a 
3S 



LITTLE GARDENS 

hollow, a pond, a ledge or a tree. You see that, 
in the first sketch, no such interruptions exist, so 
we had to make them by planting trees where 
the curves were desired. The continuous curve 
in the second conceit is wholly arbitrary; it is a 
softening of the more usual rectangular lay-out, 
and is designed to be viewed from the second- 
floor windows. The first device is less formal; 
still, if it mislikes you, (and I don't like it, alto- 
gether,) or if the folks next door protest that 
you have no right to plant trees that will throw 
a killing shade on their flower-beds and extend 
their roots under the fence, to the stealing of 
moisture — because folks who live next door to 
people are apt to do just this, being an inconsid- 
erate company — you can subdue your yard to 
good uses, none the less, and be agreeable, in 
spite of being more customary than if you raised 
jungles. If they will not let you have trees, or 
if, as is more probable, you decide that you 
haven't room enough, your fence will stare you 
out of countenance, and a back fence must have 
been invented as a part of the punishment for 
leaving Eden. There is no more fearsome beast 
than your back fence. It is of close-fitted boards, 
36 



THE CITY YARD 

six feet high, and painted white or drab. In New 
England they make a color that is used or found 
nowhere else, I believe; a blend of brown and 
lead that must have been inherited from the garb 
of the Puritans, hence, is as far from joy as colors 
can be; and this doleful hue, a stain of original 
sin, they delight to smear upon their fences. It 
may be the contemplation of this color, in the 
fences of Cambridge, that produces such frantic 
outbreaks of conduct In Harvard, for aught we 
know. But as you go southward you see less of 
this melancholy, and an attempt to simulate 
gaiety with buff or whitewash. If you find it pos- 
sible to agree with the man next door, or if he 
consents to drown his offspring, you can tear 
down the structure; or, if a partition is really nec- 
essary, you can plant box, or privet, or even a 
row of lilacs; but, be sure of your man, for he 
may have saved an urchin child from the sac- 
rifice, or he may own a large and vehement dog 
of the breed that delights to leap over obstruc- 
tions and riot over forbidden premises. There 
will be a sad to-do. In such a case, over the up- 
rooting of the hedge and the reversion to boards ; 
but — whisper ! You can let the hedge remain, 

37 



LITTLE GARDENS 

and run a barbed wire or electrified netting along 
your side of it. If you have a fence, make it as 
innocuous as possible by coloring it a light and 
cheerful green, to conform to the vegetation. Do 
not paint it: stain it; and don't, for goodness' 
sake, make it a bilious green, but a yellow green. 
That shade of yellow which in the speech of the 
commoner is denoted as " yaller " suggests liver 
complaint; but yellow is a color to use without a 
green admixture, if your yard is a haunt of shad- 
ows, and needs inspiriting. Yellow is the sunni- 
est, happiest color in the world, though we use 
the name as an adjective of contempt. You re- 
member the yellow suite in Marie Antoinette's 
apartments at Versailles, and how the sun seems 
to shine there on the dullest days. With a yel- 
low or yellow-green fence, and such sparks of 
golden light splashed against it, and over the 
sward, as Persian roses, marigolds, nasturtiums, 
coreopsis, zinnias, buttercups, rudbeckia, chrys- 
anthemums and cannas, you will have a remedy 
against the blues. If you merely rent the place, 
and the landlord, being a man without a glim- 
mering of taste or a prompting toward helpful- 
ness, declines to stain the fence, leaving it cov- 
38 



THE CITY YARD 

ered with whitewash or shiny paint of an ugly 
or staring color, be not as one without hope. 
Drive pegs into the ground, fasten strings from 
them to nails in the top of the fence, plant morn- 
ing-glory, and in a few weeks the dismal object 
will be hidden from sight, while you will be able 
to spend most of your spare time in pulling up 
little glories that will have seeded themselves 
all over the yard. The Calabrian invasion of 
America is alone to be compared with the enthu- 
siasm of the morning-glory for expansion. 

If the people next door do not object — and 
why should they, since they share the show? — 
you can erect a trellis clean around your yard for 
the more and better exhibition of the other climb- 
ing things and the increase of privacy. A sub- 
stitute for a trellis is a strand or two of wire car- 
ried above the fence top for a foot or so by 
pickets; but be careful not to impose too heavy 
a burden upon the wire. A mass of vegetation, 
especially after a rain, or a showering with the 
hose, weighs twice as much as you tell yourself 
is possible. 

Having, then, composed your mind respect- 
ing the fence, and come to the conclusion that a 
4 39 



LITTLE GARDENS 

conventional design for the yard is more suitable 
in a city than the first plan, let us see what can 
be done with our space. Suppose we try some- 
thing formal — no Italian garden, bless you, but 
one that shapes itself withal to the size and form 
of our reservation, and better, on some accounts, 
for a front yard than a back one; only, if you 
have flowers in the front yard, you will have 
most of the children of the neighborhood there; 
hence, you must add ferocious bloodhounds and 
awful serpents to your menage. 

The scheme is simple : a central walk, end- 
ing at a semicircular bed (4), with a small tree, 
mound, rockery, bench, niche or conspicuous foli- 
age plants; strips of lawn on either side of the 
way, and parallel beds beyond the lawns (i, 2 
and 3 ) , the first devoted to plants of low growth, 
the second to higher, and the third to the highest, 
with a trellis still behind and above them, if you 
like. The exhibits are thus arranged in steps, 
so that all are in view at once, and the show of 
bloom can be superb. In fact, if the yard is dished 
— that is, if it hollows a little in the center — it can 
be terraced, the platforms ascending in rises of 
six or eight inches; but that sort of thing is to be 
40 



THE CITY YARD 

avoided, ordinarily, because terracing means re- 
taining walls, and masonry means just so much 
room taken from the cultivable portion of your 
domain; then, if it is not upheld by a front of 
brick or stone, as well as a strengthening addi- 
tion to the fence, your terrace will wash down in 




;? .^g S-g i^^Wz -^^^^^^-^ 4? -^'g S? ^^ ^ ^g ^P ^i\ 

Fig. 3. — 1, 2, 3, Parallel flower-beds; 4, semicircular 
flower-bed. 



a heavy rain or thaw, and become unsightly; 
and, lastly, such things require to be done on a 
large scale, or they appear fussy and overdone. 
The uprights in the diagram stand for clothes- 
poles, if the domestic economies require them. It 
will be noted that they are placed on the lawns; 

41 



LITTLE GARDENS 

hence it is not incumbent on Mary Ann to wade 
in among the hehotrope and mignonette — dainty 
httle things, so suggestive of her own dainty self ! 
Or, revolving clothes-dryers, or poles with arms 
that project like spokes, may be erected so near 
to the house that nothing but Mary Ann's desire 
to gambol will project her into the flower-beds. 
The advantages of the plan here submitted are 
simplicity and compactness. The yard is treated 
as a flower-bed and a lawn, rather than as a series 
of beds and lawns. There is no lost space. The 
lines follow those of the fences and party walls, 
and have not a particle of originality or charac- 
ter. Your flowers will have something of the 
appearance of exhibits on the shelves of a mu- 
seum. Hard, set form will, therefore, be an at- 
tribute of this device. It can, however, be modi- 
fied by the insertion of a central bed, the side 
beds being curved along their faces to conform 
to it geometrically. This breaks the severity 
of the plan somewhat, yet it is still rigid, and 
unless the neighbors had a good deal of green 
that appeared above their fences you would feel 
that you had more than your share of flowers, 
and they the less. 

42 



THE CITY YARD 

It would be better if the central circle were 
a pool or a fountain than a flower-bed, if circum- 
stances permitted. That would relieve the ap- 
pearance of crowding which would result from 
the addition of still another bed to those that 
occupy so large a part of the surface. If you 




Fig. 4. — I, 2, 3, Flower-beds; 4, sun-dial. 



would cultivate few varieties of flowers, but have 
a quantity of each, a division of this sort com- 
mends itself. If you filled bed number i with 
tulips, number 2 with hyacinths and kept num- 
ber 3 for tall and hardy flowers, there would be 
a rare bravery of color and great delight of fra- 

43 



LITTLE GARDENS 

grance in the spring; then, after the fading, you 
could take out and store the bulbs for fall plant- 
ing, and fill their places with summer bloomers. 
It is one of the temptations to a yard owner to 
work his ground to the limit, having so little of 
it; and while it insures constant bloom, to buy 
potted plants at the greenhouses, plunge them 
into the soil, keep them for a fortnight or so, 
then cast them out to make room for novelties, 
your real gardener will not do this. To say 
nothing of the cost, it is best to grow up with the 
plant children, to know their traits. You love 
them the better — pretty dependents — for minis- 
tering to their needs, and they reward the care 
with docile behavior and a cheery aspect. My 
own choice for a yard is for a preponderance of 
perennials, the good, hardy, reliable, free-bloom- 
ers of our grandmothers' gardens, that we can 
watch for in April and May with a certainty as 
absolute as the rising of Orion a few weeks 
earlier. 

The fixity of this arrangement in strips will 

make the yard seem longer, for when we break 

lines of that kind we seem to shorten them. We 

could soften the asperity of the plan In sundry 

44 



THE CITY YARD 

ways, as by erecting an arch of wire at the en- 
trance to the path, and training roses over it, or 
building an arch, midway, to span the yard itself 
and covering it with a vine. The result would 
be rococo ; there would be a harking back to the 
Watteau and Boucher era, to the " hour, flower, 
bower" age of sentiment; and I am better in 
favor of as wide a space as the yard will give, 
enjoying the grass and reserving tall bushes and 
vines for places near to or against the fence. 
An arbor, if you must have one, should be of 
more substance than an arch of wire, and what- 
ever large object we may elect to place as orna- 
ment in the yard — for our composition must 
have a central point of interest, a focus — is better 
at the end of the vista than the beginning of it, 
since we shall see it a hundred times from the 
door and windows to once that we will look 
toward the house. And as we shall see the yard 
oftenest from the windows, it is wise to have 
some equivalent matter to take the place that in 
a picture is occupied by the commanding figure, 
or the high light. Statuary needs space, and it 
needs to be good. But for this I should consent 
to a small and modest figure, half hidden by 

45 



LITTLE GARDENS 

flowers and shaded by branches at the spot 
marked number 4 in the third plan, the trees be- 
hind the focal point in the first. White is all 
light, but it goes well with nearly anything. 
Still, we have to remember that marble figures 
are fragile and expensive, and a bronze nymph 
or satyr that had taken on the green of age, 
would best harmonize with its verdurous envi- 
I'onment. Whatever you do, don't get one of 
those smirking, insipid statuettes of Flora, Ceres, 
Hebe or Ganymede that you find on the lawn of 
the parvenu — things that belong with the tatting 
tidy, the lamp in petticoats and the plush album. 
Nor must you buy a metal deer, elk, bear or lion 
to lord it over the premises and, assumably, to 
feed by night on the rhododendrons. We all 
know that such animals do not prowl about town 
yards. With the brassy freshness of the foundry 
yet upon them, they have as much relation to 
your posies as so many pounds of stoves. In fact, 
you are not pledged to use statuary. There are 
urns, sun-dials, jardinieres and fountains. You 
may attach a fountain spray to your hose and 
turn on the water in the evening, and the spar- 
kling current, leaping from an ambush of cannas 
46 



THE CITY YARD 

or marigolds will make a really pretty episode 
in the scene. In town the water will be low, 
just when you want to use it; then you may feel 
bashful about having your neighbors discover 
the fountain when they have trouble in getting 
enough to wash the dishes ; so in that case, there 
remain the other adornments: a vase of bronze, 
for example, to be filled with pansies or nas- 
turtiums, or a jardiniere, preferably of Chinese 
or Japanese make, and of celadon, blue and 
white, or pale-green porcelain, in which may 
stand a rubber-plant or palm ; or, a box with or- 
namental handles, or a painted tub. Avoid the 
tawdry French and German china; not that all 
the china from the modern potteries is tawdry, 
by any means, for the Orientals are now doing 
some deplorable work; but there is a refinement, 
delicacy, purity in the best Chinese porcelains 
that you will find in no other. Of course, the 
finest single colors in these fictiles are not for ex- 
posure to the breakage and the weathering of the 
garden. They are to be housed as preciously as 
Raphaels and Oriental rugs — works of art that 
the world may be doomed to see no more, now 
that commercialism has invaded the studios and 

47 



LITTLE GARDENS 

the Orient, and cheap materials, hasty methods 
and insincere workmanship are rewarded as hon- 
esty and effort used to be. 

You need not use marble, bronze or porce- 
lain for your central point of interest. Large 
and decorative plants will serve. The splendid 
green of the rubber-tree and the exquisite grace 
of palms, particularly the kentia, qualify these 
plants for decorative purposes. The kentia bal- 
moreana is an especially useful palm, less tender, 
more thrifty, larger and more beautiful in a 
northern climate than are some of the commoner 
species. A rockery is not a bad focus for a gar- 
den, either. These features may be combined 
by the exercise of a little taste and ingenuity, 
thus: a crescent of flowers in the bed number 4, 
third plan, a rock pile back of it, half concealed 
in vines or cacti, a jardiniere stoutly fixed in the 
front and center of the rockery, and a water 
spray arising from before the crescent. This 
group of objects, or any such, will pleasantly as- 
sert itself, and will both lend and borrow interest 
from its surroundings. The focus may be shifted 
to any part of the yard, and so long as the other 
contents are subordinate to it and not In rivalry, 
48 



THE CITY YARD 

and so that the hnes of composition tend toward 
it, it will remain a focus, and the eye will seek. it. 
Or, for purposes of emphasis, a stout bush, a 
group of showy flowers, a tree, an old trunk cov- 
ered with vine, a mass of morning-glory clam- 
bering up the pole of a bird-house: these will 
serve. 

Now, it may be that the house is rented, and 
the owner will not permit liberties to be taken 
with his real estate. You never can tell what 
manner of man an owner is going to be, when 
you sign a lease. A certain tenant whom I know 
had trained with care and affection a Boston ivy 
to cover a house front. It was a wondrous re- 
lief to a bleakly unimportant street. The vine 
broke into color early and kept of a polished 
and healthful green for six months. Along 
comes the landlord, looks at it, and remarks, 
"Well, when that stuff's all cut off, and a good 
coat of paint's put over them bricks, that'll be a 
good-lookin' house again." That is the sort of 
being who is likely to object to spading and 
planting, because they might interfere with the 
setting out of clothes-poles. A popular kind of 
yard, of his devising, is this: 

49 



LITTLE GARDENS 




Fig. 5. 

The shaded part expresses flagstones or as- 
phalt; the rest is grass. I had the run of that 
pattern of yard for a season or two, and as it was 
the playground of sundry small boys of an in- 
quiring turn respecting vegetation, which im- 
pelled them to take plants out of the earth now 
and then, to see how they were getting on, I did 
not undertake anything difficult. I adopted the 
simple scheme shown in Fig. 6. 

Grass was the principal attraction here, yet, 

on a summer evening after a good showering 

with the hose there was a deal of gaiety in the 

foreground and among the plebeian bushes that 

50 



THE CITY YARD 

edged the fence. We concealed a part of that 
fence with glories, sweet peas, wild beans, and 
tried to conceal the rest of it with vines that 
made amazing pictures in the seedsmen's cata- 
logues, but that refused on any terms to enter 




Fig. 6. — i. Wild garden; 2, flower-beds; 3, rockery; 
4, shrubs and hardy plants; 5, jimson-weed. 

Into the picture made by our premises — a cir- 
cumstance that filled me with grief and astonish- 
ment, for I had supposed that seedsmen's cata- 
logues were as true as the Farmer's Almanac. 
We had one thing in that yard that nobody else 
had, willingly, and we were proud of it, namely, 

51 



LITTLE GARDENS 

a " jimson-weed " — the stramonium, or thorn- 
apple, of the vacant lots. This had sown Itself 
in the center of the back bed, and being pictur- 
esque of leaf and an oddity among cultivated 
plants, I spared It. Ordinarily, the sure way to 
kill a weed Is to become attached to It, and give 
the same care to It that you would to an exotic. 
It will pine and die. " You never loved a dear 
gazelle — " and all that sort of thing, you know. 
But this Jamestown weed endured prosperity 
with a cheer that It was good to see. It grew and 
grew until It was the prize among Its species. 
Out In California they have jimsons so big that 
you can play under them, but I speak now of our 
humble Eastern variety, which Is usually of a 
dusty, weed-like aspect, rooted among ash-dumps, 
crockery and old cans, and lapsing Into a squalor 
of age at the first nip of the frost. I hoed the 
soil about It, watered it, picked off the beetles 
and grubs, and when the flowers came, gathered 
them every evening, at least, all but enough to 
attract the night-moth, with Its astonishing pro- 
boscis. The determination of that plant to have 
seed caused It to put forth blossoms in a multi- 
tude, and it swelled almost to the dimension of 

52 



THE CITY YARD 

a tree. It was ten or a dozen feet wide and about 
nine feet high. It screened a ragged and un- 
pleasant view behind us, and was really as hand- 
some a property as many an owner of a private 
park could desire. There is a hint for any one 
who cares to act on it. 

Adjoining our yard was its twin, but here is 
what the owner did, and I instance this merely 
that you may avoid it : 




Fig. 7. — I, Trellis reared against the house; 2, summer- 
house; 3, arbor; 4, plants; 5, flower-bed. 



Here was architecting on an 18 X 50 with 
a vengeance. The summer-house and arbor were 
S3 



LITTLE GARDENS 

so heavily blanketed with vines that they were 
dark, damp and soon grew rickety, while the 
shadows they cast hindered or killed vegetation 
around them, and the spaces between them and 
the fence were such wee, pinched areas that they 
could not be farmed at a profit. The covering 
of this reservation with planks and lath exem- 
plifies a common tendency of Americans to do 
too much of everything. They overeat, over- 
dress, overgain, overlegislate, they cram too 
much into their houses, and up to a certain time 
of life try to cram too much into their heads. 
The Japanese have something to tell us in respect 
of art and life. They simplify them. The rich 
man in Japan does not show everj'thing he owns. 
He puts out certain bronzes, vases, wall hang- 
ings, crystals, carvings and the like of that for a 
day or a week, then retires them to his chests and 
cabinets, and produces another set. He would 
as soon think of wearing all his clothes at once 
as of showing all his ivories, porcelains, netsukes, 
lacquers, kakemonos and embroideries. We, on 
the contrary, are so fond of show and luxury that 
we convert our houses into shops and museums, 
and the same propensity for overdoing Is not 

54 



THE CITY YARD 

infrequently seen in country estates with their 
overfrequent rustic shelters, pewter statuary, and 
masonry that means nothing except a job for the 
mason. It is also seen in yards. One yard in 
my town has a rockery which the owner has be- 
strewn with statuettes and china, that I verily 
think he found in the ash-dumps. He does not 
realize that a house is better suited for such 
things than is a place where green will grow. 
I have seen objects in a yard that were not artis- 
tic, yet that heightened the interest of locality, 
or hinted at resources of place or family history. 
In quartz countries, for instance, rockeries of 
snowy blocks and chunks of crystal connect the 
yard with the environing land, and in sundry 
whaling towns I think we would not spare the 
ancient figureheads, the flagpoles, the ribs and 
vertebrae of whales that decorate the yards, any 
more than the after-cabins of dead ships which 
have been hauled up into the street to serve as 
summer-houses, kitchens or homes for the hum- 
ble. These things, which impart a fine, fishy flavor 
to shore settlements, are grotesque when trans- 
ferred to inland yards, unless by a strange chance 
they conform to some scheme of building or deco- 

' S5 



LITTLE GARDENS 

ration in the house that overlooks them. A house 
like that of the New York Yacht Club, for ex- 
ample, which is a fairly successful, and certainly 
interesting attempt to continue on land a sugges- 
tion of the architecture of the sea, would be en- 
titled to a summer-house in the form of an after- 
cabin in its yard, if it had a yard; but can any- 
thing be more out of place than a boat, serving 
as jardiniere or flower-bed, in a yard five miles 
from water? So, if vv^e must have constructions 
and other matters in our ground that are but re- 
motely germane to its normal uses, let us have a 
thought for their fitness. One of the new-rich 
families in New York has, in the middle of the 
drawing-room, a Russian sleigh, highly orna- 
mented with panel paintings, and a palm stands 
on its seat. Palms are so usual to Russia; and 
especially in sleighs ! Well, of all the — how- 
ever, it is no worse than putting an old carriage 
body or boat or packing-box into the garden and 
filling it with flowers; hardly so bad, in fact, be- 
cause hardly so obstructive, as putting two sum- 
mer-houses on a strip fifty feet long. 

Assuming that we are bound by the usual 
conditions as to space and flagging, and have to 
S6 



THE CITY YARD 

deal with the kind of yard figured in the last 
sketch, we can strike out a little more boldly and 
accomplish this: 







Fig. 8. — i. Flower-beds; 2, vase or fountain; 3, a tree, 
palm, rustic bench, rustic shelter or statue. 

The scheme is formal, but there are curves 
to offset the angles, and the vase and bench, the 
distant object higher and larger than the nearer, 
serve to relieve any possible monotony of form 
or color — though, really, that can hardly exist 
in such a little space. Observe that the nearer 
division of the yard, which is surrounded by 
walk, is left in grass, except at its farther end. 

57 



LITTLE GARDENS 

That enables Mary Ann to put out the wash 
without committing Bulgarian atrocities among 
the pansies. A continuous bed surrounds the 
yard, save where it brings up against the house, 
and throws out two little wings whereby it 
almost encloses the second lawn also. A space 
is left between them so as to afford access to 
this lawn without stepping across the bed. If 
there is much travel to and fro, the path may 
be extended around the oval, and so to the end 
of the yard; but so little space is left for grass 
that it seems a pity to sacrifice any of it. Even 
if It Is worn a trifle, it will freshen after a wet- 
ting, and grass that is slightly Injured Is bet- 
ter than a walk that Is not used. At number 2 
a tall plant or group of plants will serve instead 
of vase or fountain as an effective center, but 
remember, again, to make It subsidiary in height, 
mass or color to whatever object completes the 
vista and occupies the place of distinction in the 
last bed. A piece of strong-colored Chinese or 
Japanese porcelain — not garish, mind; only pos- 
itive — or a Japanese temple lantern of dull 
bronze. If It does not wear too alien an aspect, 
and Is half concealed by vines and flowers, will 
58 



THE CITY YARD 

serve at number 3, If the yard Is so narrow that a 
bench, a rustic arbor or any larger object would 
appear disproportionate to its setting. 

Perhaps the yard has a continuous walk, in- 
stead of the commoner one that cuts it asunder, 
and In that case the scheme can be modified in 
this way: 




Here the beds surround the yard, as before, 
except on the house side, while In the lawn space 
are three other beds, progressively larger as they 
recede. The effect of this progression is to 
widen the yard, as the eye roves over it. This 
59 



LITTLE GARDENS 

arrangement allows of the display of many va- 
rieties of flowers, though it is informally formal 
in its simplicity, and if trellises or wire net are 
added to the fence, as carriers for vines, and 
thus give more color and seclusion to your Hora- 
tian estates, the neighbors will probably call 
oftener than they did. Mary Ann, you see, still 
has the freedom of the' first ten feet, and I must 
remind you that it is not necessary to plant 
clothes-poles for her. Nowadays it is usual to 
extend two beams across the yard, running from 
an upright on one fence to the other. The 
clothes-lines are strung from beam to beam, 
fastened to hooks, and a stout tug will haul the 
line so taut that poles will not be needed to sup- 
port it. This is an advantage, for poles may 
fall and smash your ageratum or your salpiglossis 
— the same being no part of the human system. 
Mary Ann's fingers are usually buttered when 
she clutches any domestic materials that you es- 
pecially wish she hadn't. 

A modification of this plan is shown in 
Fig. lo. 

As for the walk, it ought to be narrow. 
Eighteen inches is enough. You will doubtless 
60 



THE CITY YARD 

make it of gravel, if you have the say so, and it 
certainly agrees best with the ground, so far as 
appearances go. Stone and brick, though ugly, 
have their advantages: weeds and grass do not 
grow on them, it costs no trouble to keep them 




Fig. io. — i. Flower-beds; 2, trees. 

clean, they are not kicked up and put into dis- 
array by heavy or shuffling feet, and they are a 
check against weeds in the borders. It is not 
easy to repress the grass when it has no greater 
obstacle than gravel, which will be moistened in 
the showerings, but it stops when it touches as- 
phalt or flagstones. And if you would avoid 
61 



LITTLE GARDENS 

trouble on this score, let your garden-beds come 
plumb to the edge of the walk, instead of leav- 
ing the usual strip of grass between them. The 
grass will never leave off trying to possess itself 
of the whole premises, and the fight against it, 
when it determines to go where it does not be- 
long, will be unremitting. There is one variety, 
a coarse and riotous sort, known as witch-grass, 
that is downright uncanny in its sneaking and its 
strenuousness. You are transplanting a mignon- 
ette, perhaps, out of a crowded spot into a roomy 
one, and have thrust your trowel four or five 
inches into the earth, when you strike a long, 
white, ropy root. Get a firm grip, and lift it, by 
successive pulls, moving your hold nearer and 
nearer to its starting-place, until you reach its 
origin under a bunch of witch-grass and pluck 
the whole thing. You will find that the bunch 
has thrown out a star of these roots, some of 
them two feet long, which are boring and explor- 
ing in all directions, quite thankful to you for 
loosening and fertilizing the soil for them in the 
spring, and from each of these runners blades 
are starting toward the air. In turn these blades 
will become deeply anchored, and will send out 
62 



THE CITY YARD 

root scouts to found new colonies. If witch-grass 
gets into your yard it is almost worth while to 
spade it up from end to end, chopping and over- 
turning the sod to freeze and rot it through the 
winter, and making a fresh start with lawn-grass 
seed as soon as the snow is off. The war against 
weeds in the yard is, in object and effect, so hke 
the war against the weeds and parasites in human 
society that one can readily forbear to publish 
any parables on the topic. Where a walk occurs 
between a lawn and a garden-bed, especially if it 
is a flagged walk, the grass roots are less apt to 
cross it than they are to underlap a space imme- 
diately adjoining. Thus, in one way, it means 
economy of labor to have as much walk as pos- 
sible, and we have all seen " gardens " behind 
city houses that consisted entirely of flagstones, 
to Mary Ann's resounding joy, and the pained 
astonishment of moths, potato-bugs and persons 
who drifted into them. Let us pray not to have 
that sort of a garden ourselves, and to the end 
that we may not, we will continue our devising. 
Only, before leaving the subject of grass, let me 
caution you against making flower-beds In the 
form of stars or anchors, or human beings, be- 
63 



LITTLE GARDENS 

cause the slender points of soil exposed in the 
outlining of such extravagant devices are easily 
crossed by grass roots, and by reason of their nar- 
rowness are hard to reach with a hoe, except by 
disturbing the roots of flowers and plants of 
showy foliage that you may have set out there. 
If you have been so unwise as to make a star bed 
with long points in a yard containing witch-grass, 
you may as well decide to sit up all night with 
it and keep the grass out. If the people on either 
side of you, or behind you, have allowed this 
dreaded vegetable to establish itself on their 
premises, it will surely crawl under your fence, 
and the remedy is to spade deeply, vigorously 
and frequently all around that partition. It is 
one advantage of a brick wall, such as we seldom 
use in cities any more, that forbidden growths 
do not reach beneath it. 

Supposing that you have the usual yard, but 
without walks, so that you are at liberty to lay 
off your own, you can scheme one to this ef- 
fect, which, as you observe, is merely a modi- 
fication of Fig. 2; a compromise, if you like, in 
that it gives some direct path, and less of the 
oval. 

64 











,J. i 




A GARDEN AND SOMETHING MORE. 







'.-M ,;.■ ;iJ^ 












1**^ 

fe 



ox THE OUTER EDGE OF A CITY 



THE CITY YARD 



^i»'. ■■ •■■ ■■ -.-.■. ■ ■■■, -■., ■ ■ - .• ^ ■ ■■'•%& 









r^.;p'. 







Fig. II. — I, Flower-beds. 

By lengthening the walk at A, in the farther 
end of the yard, setting box borders on either 
side of it and placing bay-trees, spruces or tubbed 
saplings in rows outside the box, a pretty vista 
will be made that ought, of course, to end 
importantly, for an avenue of vegetation is a 
promise: you expect it to lead to something. 
Therefore, in pursuance of the formality thus ex- 
pressed, it is fitting to end it with a statue, alcove, 
arbor, rustic chair or bench. Should a bench be 
put there, it may gain dignity and the occupants 
of it can secure shade if it is protected by wire 
fencing, the same to be covered with climbing 

6S 



LITTLE GARDENS 

roses or honeysuckle, the arch rising to a height 
of, say, nine feet. 

Still following the formalities, we can go 
back to straight lines, and use them indirectly 
in a diamond pattern like this: 













Fig. 12. 

It would be gorgeous, indeed, if you could 
cover the whole of the diamond with flowers, 
planting canna in the middle, then gladioli, then 
dianthus, phlox, love-lies-bleeding, cockscomb 
and other flowers of red or ruddy hue till the pro- 
gression ended at the walk in a border of the 
red alternanthera, or of ruddy coleus. The trl- 
66 



THE CITY YARD 



angular corners marked B could be filled by tall 
and bushy plants — nothing better for this than 
stout old roses. The hindrances to the plan are 
Mary Ann's feet, for she has so few other places 
to plant them that flowers must serve; and again 
we have been a wee bit sparing of grass, unless 
the neighbors have a deal of it that is in view 
from our own premises. Also, the divergent 
walks seem indirect for direct and wakeful peo- 
ple. The floriculture could, therefore, be re- 
stricted to a circle in the middle of the diamond. 
A combination of the last two plans can also be 
expressed in this : 







Fig. 13. — I, Flower-beds ; 2, statue or lantern. 
67 



LITTLE GARDENS 

This, like some of the other gardens, must 
be laid off by permission of the kitchen powers, 
for if they decide for clothes, the clothes must 
have more space and their wearers will accustom 
themselves to self-denial and hard-boiled shirts. 

It will be noted that of the flower-beds thus 
far, or to be shown, all are of simple form. I 
am opposed to " carpets," at least in yards, and 
to pictures and mottoes, and to topiary and all 
extravagances of artifice. There may, possibly, 
be occasion for beds in the shape of harps, clocks, 
flags, houses and lions, but such occasions can not 
occur in the home garden whereof we treat. In 
brief, I am opposed to difficulty for its own sake. 
There may be virtue in the postulate of art for 
art's sake, and acrobatics for hardship's sake, 
and Maine laws for the land's sake, but it would 
be an easier, pleasanter world if we applied our 
strength to changing things for the better, in- 
stead of making things to change, then changing 
them to what they are now. Simple things are 
the comprehensible, the agreeable, the perma- 
nent, and the universe prefers them. Therefore, 
let us not be above them in our gardens. 

Because of the smallness of space in a yard, 
68 



THE CITY YARD 

it is better not to have it cut up or divided by 
fences, but a change in level from front to rear 
may make it compulsory to terrace it, say, across 
the middle. If it is a sharp change, or if shifting 
sand makes it hard to bank it, the rise of the ter- 
race can be vertical and faced with masonry — a 
thing commonly to be avoided in a small space. 
This retaining wall can be covered with vines or 
tall plants, save at the center, where a flight of 
two or three steps could give access to the higher 
ground. If the economies have to be consulted, 
these steps will doubtless be driven into the ter- 
race, and will be no wider than necessary; but if 
the expense can be afforded it is better to have 
them extend from the terrace in widening cres- 
cents — marble against greenery. Should it be 
possible merely to slope the terrace and cover the 
slope with turf, instead of holding the upper sec- 
tion in place by stone, the flight of steps will be 
all the more graceful. Here is the plan. 

This assumes that the back of the yard is 
higher than the house foundation. If the to- 
pography is the reverse of this, little change is 
called for, except to turn the steps the other way 
and to plant taller shrubs in the distant half of 
69 



LITTLE GARDENS 




Fig. 14. 



the yard, that they may be seen more readily 
from the lower windows. As a terrace pertains 
to formal gardens, we can use a little more strict- 
ness of form here than we might wish to apply to 
a level, and the upper portion, being pedestaled 
into a certain adventitious dignity, we can use 
a fountain at A, or a statue under an arch of 
roses at B, with less compunction than if they 
were just under the clothes-lines. 

It sometimes happens that the back of the 
yard abuts on a lower terrain, in which case you 
will be constantly losing real estate to your neigh- 
70 



THE CITY YARD 

bor, after a shower. Or, it may be that you have 
an open fence there, or no fence, or that you are 
resolved on raising your own lettuce or strav/- 
berries. In that case a hedge is excusable, and 
might be laid off in this form: 




Fig. 15. — I, Flower-beds; 2, the hedges; 3, the focal 
point or vista end. 

This plan is easily modified; the middle bed 
can be made square, or diamond shaped, or what 
not. Its main points are the concealment of 
space behind the hedges, for vegetables, or, if 
there is nothing to conceal, it is still a good place 
for trees. If the ground just behind this area 

6 yi 



LITTLE GARDENS 

is lower, it is wise to plant tough shrubs along 
the edge of the declivity and plant them thickly, 
in order to knit the soil together, and prevent 
little landslides that will eat back into your yard 
and provide valleys and canons that you do not 
want. The curve of the hedges gradually 
straightens, merging them into a row of bushes 
on either side of the yard. In harmony with this, 
it is permissible to border the walk, all the way, 
with box, a charming accessory of the old-fash- 
ioned garden, when well used, for the idea of a 
border agrees with that of a hedge, and the box, 
in its compact growth, toughness of stem, and 
opulent green, is the privet in little. Farther- 
more, a trellis could be constructed at the back, 
as shield against an offending prospect and back- 
ground for a bust, if you want to put one there — 
my pen came near to writing, " or have one." 
Horrible thought ! 

Should this notion of hedging the end of the 
yard please you so well that you decide to take 
more room there, to the end that you might have 
a nook where you could take your sewing or your 
tea, or where you could read while little Jonas 
tumbled on the grass, the line of privet could be 
72 



THE CITY YARD 

set forward, straightened, allowed to grow to its 
full height of twelve feet, the trellis could be 
carried around three sides of the enclosure, and 
raised to the same height, and if all that did not 
protect you from observation and sunshine, a 
strip of light awning could be extended over a 
part of the space, attaching its ends to the trellis. 
Here, in the evening, chairs and tables could be 
brought, Japanese lanterns could be hung and 
the family could gossip over the demi-tasse and 
cigar, while mingling with the fragrance of the 
Havana would come the odors of the related 
nicotiana, setting its pale lamps for the lure of 
moths in the twilight. 

Water brings light and life into the dullest 
landscape, and it has been used pleasantly in gar- 
dens, even of the city. I hesitate to commend it 
in the yard, however, because of the mosquitoes 
that breed in it. For it is amusing to listen to 
the talk, of draining, burning and oiling the Jer- 
sey and Long Island meadows, knowing that the 
talkers continue to place fire-tanks on their roofs 
in town, where millions of culex and anopheles 
get themselves born, and descend into the streets 
to prey on the multitude. One usually has to be 

73 



LITTLE GARDENS 

saving of water in a city. Our towns are grow- 
ing so large that the supplying of necessities to 
them Is becoming a serious problem. Hence, it 
Is not possible to have reservoirs in a yard where 
the water shall flow constantly, and so surely as it 
stagnates, so surely will the mosquito lay her 
eggs upon it, wigglers will develop, and for the 
rest of the summer you will visit your garden 
only in gloves and veils, or under cover of a 
smudge that will destroy all the sweetness of the 
flowers. If you do live In one of those rare 
towns that have water enough, and clear water, 
and can afford to change It once or twice a day 
— for It won't do to kill the mosquito larvae by 
oiling It, on account of the odor and look of It 
afterward — It Is best to place the pit or tank at 
the back of the yard. A cement reservoir ten 
feet across, three feet deep, with a curb raised a 
foot above the ground Is ample, but half of a 
hogshead, sunk in the earth, will cost much 
less, though In each case you have to meditate 
upon the necessity of engaging a plumber. In 
this aquatic garden you may raise papyrus, lotus, 
water-hyacinth, and water-lily, and it has one 
advantage over the flower-bed in that you do 
74 



THE CITY YARD 

not have to cut away the overhanging growths 
to afford light to it. On the contrary, if your 
yard were big enough for trees of a drooping 
habit, the very place for them would be near 
this pool, where their inverted image paints it- 
self against the reflected pattern of the sky. If 
it is deemed safe to omit the curbing, all the 
better, and the installation of the tank makes the 
fountain easily possible, because it makes some 
equivalent imperative: that is, you must get 
water into the tank after you have built it. The 
flower-beds near the water will be refreshed by 
the spray, and both beds and pond will gain in 
charm from one another. If you have such a 
pond, the water-flowers can be grown there in 
heavy, porous boxes, sunk at the bottom and 
filled with loam and compost. And after the 
water clears it is well to introduce gold and sil- 
ver fish, not for appearance' sake alone, but be- 
cause they purify the pond, consuming worms 
and insects that may fall into it. If, for any 
reason, fish are undesirable, try, by all means, 
to persuade some dragon-flies, or devil's darning- 
needles, to inhabit near. These beautiful crea- 
tures, the terror of the ignorant, who believe that 

75 



LITTLE GARDENS 

they will sting and even " sew up people's ears," 
are absolutely harmless, and they are voracious 
feeders on the mosquitoes, that will breed in 
your lake if it is allowed to stagnate. The 
dragon-flies eat mosquitoes, both in the larval 
and winged states. 

Possibly you are so unfortunate as not merely 
to be short of water, in which case an aquatic 
garden is hopeless, but of soil. Your yard may be 
of sand, or builders' rubbish, in which not even 
purslain will grow. Well, luckier men have had 
to contend with harder problems. The mansions 
on Nob Hill, in San Francisco, are builded on 
sand that is little more fertile than a plate, or 
stove-lid, yet by sodding, fertilizing and water- 
ing it has been surfaced and is as green as the 
parks of Eastern cities. This takes time and 
some money, and circumstances not unconnected 
with the latter commodity may oblige you to cre- 
ate your garden by degrees. Li the first year 
you may have to consider most of it as walk, 
raking up the coarser materials and strewing 
gravel over the paths. Yet, you can doubtless 
buy three or four loads of good loam; you may 
even have it of some lot owner for the asking, 
76 



THE CITY YARD 

if you will pay the cartage. In that case a spar- 
ing array of beds may presage a larger one — 
some such device as this : 










fe^^#J: 







Fig. 1 6. 

Here is another device for a stony yard 
where the earth has to be imported. The focus, 
in this case, is at the side. 

You can surround each of these little beds 
with box, so that when you are able to throw on 
more soil the plan will remain until such time as 
the yard is covered, and you can undertake plant- 
ing on a larger scale. A fcAv prefer a frame of 
box for the floral picture under all circumstances, 
77 



LITTLE GARDENS 




Fig. 17. 

and cultivate a close little hedge of it, a foot or 
more high, about every bed, even such as are 
devoted to vegetables. Borders are needed 
when the beds are surrounded by graveled walks, 
but not when they are merely openings in the 
grass. They belong to the formal garden, and 
spaces cut in the lawn are less formal in their 
aspect. The delicious old gardens at Mount Ver- 
non, that have been growing more beautiful since 
George Washington cultiv^ated them, illustrate 
the use of borders. The beds are so sunk in box 
that they suggest being packed in boxes. They 
heighten the pleasant primness of a formal gar- 
78 



THE CITY YARD 

den, to be sure, and suggest the tea-cup times of 
cup and hood, as they are suggested in old family 
silver, four-posted beds and wax candles. Where 
formalism is admitted, I own to an enjoyment of 
hedges and borders that are clipped down to a 
definite height and show vertical sides. They 
go with smooth-shaven lawns and flower-beds of 
geometric outline. But pray stop there. Don't 
distort your poor cedar, yew, privet, box or 
Osage orange into a crowing cock, a rampant 
bear, or an heraldic dragon. Don't deceive your- 
self into supposing that you commend the tree 
when you ask your friends to admire it. You 
are merely requesting praise for your own mis- 
placed cleverness, and one of these days the So- 
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Trees may 
hear about you. There may be an occasion for 
trimming a tree into a cube, a cylinder, a column, 
a globe, an umbrella, or a cone, though I can't 
imagine it, and in these shapes we see, reduced 
to precision, some forms that trees will hint at 
on their own initiative; but a tree never willingly 
posed as a likeness of a giraffe, or a gentleman in 
a cocked hat, or a corkscrew, or a decanter, and 
it is an outrage on vegetable dignity to ask it. 

79 



LITTLE GARDENS 

In the square-topped hedge or row, the effect 
is different. We feel it with the eye as part in a 
plan of garden architecture, its firm, level lines 
are restful, it substitutes itself for a wall; hence, 
it takes its form, it thickens, moreover, with 
trimming, so as to serve all the better as parti- 
tion. Topiary, or tree sculpture, is especially 
ridiculous in small spaces. It is not formalism: 
it is grotesquery. Have none of it. 

In sum, I would say that in the treatment of 
a city yard be moderately formal — that is, sym- 
metrical — in a formal place; give to trees their 
natural form, lopping only straggling and ob- 
structive growths; hide the fence with vegeta- 
tion; group the flowers by sizes and colors; 
strive for broad, massive effects; avoid the fin- 
ical and higgledy-piggledy; raise grass; use orna- 
ment with frugality and caution, but have a 
focus of interest, which need not be a geometric 
center. 



80 



Ill 

THE COUNTRY YARD 

In the yard of the village house — not the 
summer villa with its acres, but the country home 
of country people — there is room for more di- 
versity and opportunity for larger effects than in 
town, for the yard is moderately sure to be larger 
than that of a city house. The possibilities of 
beauty and interest in gardens increase as the 
squares of their area. Yet I think that the same 
rules for garden-making hold in the country as 
in the town, namely, that there should be sim- 
plicity instead of extravagance, masses instead 
of scatterings, law instead of lawlessness in re- 
spect of color and form, and that there should 
be a focus, or point of interest, or constructional 
center. In the country, however, the point of 
interest need not be in the ground itself. If your 
house commands a view of a conspicuous moun- 
tain, or an expanse of lake, or a handsome clump 
of wood, or a prospect of a village with a white 
8i 



LITTLE GARDENS 

spire rising above the trees, this can be the focus : 
the point toward which the lines of your garden 
will tend. A picture has this dominant note of 
form, light or color, and its other parts are sub- 
ordinate to this. If it is otherwise, the effect is 
confusing, for instead of a balance of light and 
shade there will be a hundred little lights and 
shades, each demanding the same attention as 
the rest. Such a picture tires one after a little 
while. There is no repose in it. We may not 
admire a street, for it may be shabby, crowded, 
discordant in color; but the convergence of its 
architectural lines toward the vanishing-point re- 
duces it to a certain simplicity, which in itself 
is dignity, and creates a subtle satisfaction. Far 
finer are those vistas where the vanishing-point 
is intercepted by some object of beauty, and 
where the perspective is marked, not by build- 
ings, but by trees, or hedges, or borders. The 
view of St. Peter's from some of the Roman gar- 
dens, the Pincian, for example, and the view 
from the Soldiers' Home, at Washington, known 
as Capitol Vista, both showing aisles and arches 
of green that end in splendid domes, exemplify 
this point. 

82 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

Of course, It may easily happen in the coun- 
try as elsewhere, that the objective point for a 
garden composition will be lacking. Instead of 
opening up the paths and alleys on your home 
ground, It may be desired to lead them nowhere, 
because they might otherwise carry the eye to a 
factory, a stable, a stone heap, a dump, a neg- 
lected farm, a freight shed or some such un- 
agreeable matter. In a case like that you can 
do no better than build a hedge and close the 
view entirely, treating your space thereafter 
In substantially the same manner as the city 
yard. 

In the country we do not hide our horticul- 
ture from the eyes of men, because we do not 
erect big rows of flats and shops between our 
gardens and the road. A country house de- 
mands a margin. It will have a yard in front, 
as well as a space at the side or back. Hence it 
has room for show, to put It vulgarly; for the 
manner has never obtained with us, and let us 
pray It never will, of building villages solidly. In 
blocks, as they do In parts of France and Eng- 
land — a fashion passed down from the time 
when the peasantry clung for employment and 

83 



LITTLE GARDENS 

protection about the foundations of the castle, 
and when it was cheaper and easier for their lord 
to tell them off in rows than to build detached 
shelters for them. Possibly this very cutting off 
of some of the people from the fields has led 
them to prize the beauty of the fields the more; 
and we have to admit that among the British cot- 
ters, the garden, simple as they make it, is a 
source of more care and satisfaction than among 
many in our country, although the growing of 
flowers is now general in America. Gardens, if 
no bigger than bedrooms, are attached to most 
of the English cottages, and odd makeshifts are 
often seen in the attempt to force a growth of 
flowers where Americans would never think of 
planting them. It is better to cultivate a rood 
of space as if you meant it than to plant a whole 
acre and leave it to the weeds and the elements. 
And in this country, where land is so abundant, 
and so cheap, we neglect it. We have too many 
shabby farms and seedy gardens. When an 
Englishman has a few feet of space, he makes it 
count for something. In Bridge End, Warwick, 
a street of old brick-and-timber cottages has per- 
mitted no grace and comfort of shade and lawn, 
84 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

every house being separated from its neighbor 
by a party wall, and plumping itself as full upon 
the highway as it dares; yet along the front of 
these dwellings runs the merest strip of soil, 
curbed away from the walk, and showing, 
through the summer, a mass of fine, old-fash- 
ioned bloom. This communal park, which is, 
maybe, a foot and a half wide, masks, or rather 
softens, the quaint buildings, and gives to them 
a peculiar picturesqueness. The effect would be 
worth copying if we built and bedded that way, 
but in America we are doing better: we are 
taking down our fences and converting wide dis- 
tricts into a continuous garden. The newer parts 
of the beautiful city of Hartford are a revelation 
of what may be accomplished by a community 
that has civic spirit, good taste and good neigh- 
borship. On the edge of the town even the trol- 
ley posts are half hid in vines, and one of the 
ugliest incidents of our streets is thus converted 
to charm. 

It is not everywhere that the fence can be 

abolished. In a visit to a socialist community 

in Illinois I was puzzled by the number and 

stoutness of the fences. The disappearing fence 

85 



LITTLE GARDENS 

in our part of the world means advancing so- 
cialism; yet here, in the stronghold of the faith, 
were the assertions of individual right in prop- 
erty. I asked the reason. " Sure, you don't 
suppose we could raise anything in our yard," 
came the answer, " if it wasn't for the fence? 
The people next door keep hens." 

Yet there is little need for fences unless it is 
where cattle abound. A low wall will keep them 
out, and the wall can be covered with vines. The 
hedge is a still better safeguard against cows and 
tramps, unless it is so savory that the cows eat 
their way through it; it grows stouter instead of 
weaker every year; it is handsome and grows 
handsomer, while the fence grows rickety; the 
advertising fiend can not misuse it, and it merges 
the surrounded property into its rural environ- 
ment. Wire fencing has the merit of unobtru- 
siveness, but if you expect to go to heaven do 
not use barbed wire. I am not punning when I 
say it is barbaric. Let your fence be a hedge, 
thin and tall, low and chunky, according to your 
neighbors and your tastes. The Englishman 
likes his high. He demands privacy. He will 
erect a stone wall inside his hedge, If need be, 
86 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

and strew broken bottles ov^er the top, that 
poachers and burglars may cut their blooming 
fingers off when they try to chmb over it. He 
will spoil the view from a country road, and 
spoil his own, by blocking the prospect in this 
fashion, and will scare the stranger by an ex- 
hibit of " No Trespass " signs in his cabbage- 
patch — signs such as have likewise appeared in 
our country within the last forty years. The 
American seldom wants privacy; Isolation yet 
more rarely. Democracy seems to be preparing 
the way for a closer social compact, in which In- 
dividualism must suffer. As a token of it we 
consider privacy so little that we bring the house 
close to the road, in order to see the wagons pass, 
whereas it Is in better taste and for better com- 
fort, to withdraw It by at least a dozen or a hun- 
dred feet. Then you have some beauty and dig- 
nity of setting; you do not cheapen yourself by 
asking the public to look in at your windows, and 
to listen to the carols of Mary Ann at the tubs. 
You may also have an avenue before your house, 
and if you plan this deftly, not only may you lead 
it toward the road, but make it a vista with some 
notable passage of scenery at the end — a road 

7 87 



LITTLE GARDENS 

whereby the spirit shall adventure into new 
spaces. 

In the country, more than in the city, the 
garden is a part of the establishment. It may 
be a dozen of geraniums or petunias, or a few 
sunflowers, struggling toward the sun, but it has 
an esthetic meaning in itself, and it relates the 
house to the landscape. A country garden be- 
comes a part of the dwelling of the mind — part 
of that outlook for which we forsake cities, and 
that opens to us distances and eternities that 
towns conceal. You will, therefore, cultivate 
your garden as if you meant to live with it. It 
will not be the brief and little solace of a city 
yard. Its trees, bushes and perennials will bloom 
in your affection; they will be fixtures, like the 
weathering porches of your house; like your old 
horse, your playful hens, your pranksome dog, 
and your fruitful cow. You will learn to watch 
for the budding of your annuals in the spring; 
you will have a calendar of the seasons at your 
window. You may even learn to forecast the 
weather from the conduct of your garden and its 
animal visitors; for they tell us that pimpernel, 
or shepherd's weather-glass, opens when sunny 
88 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

weather promises overhead, and partly or wholly 
closes when storms are brewing; at least, the 
English peasantry believe so. Goatsbeard and 
marigold also fold together when it darkens, and 
we have all seen the sleep of oxalis. Country- 
men have observed that when the air is clear, 
when fish dart about, when stagnant water smells, 
when frogs look dull in color, when swallows fly 
low, when cobs come out of their webs more 
freely than in sunlight, then, flowers are apt to 
shrink from bad weather, and it is time to make 
things snug. These observations are not my 
own. I have never seen timidity in flowers, but 
only regular habits in some of them that incline 
them to close against too fierce a light, or too 
dead a darkness. Not only may it be possible 
to study weather from our yard, but we may 
know the time of day. At least, it was the dream 
of Linne — absurdly Latinized as Linnasus (for, 
suppose we were to speak of our first martyr as 
Lincolnius!) — to own a floral-lock. This uot- 
anist, whose work is held in awe by all who have 
tried to read it, and in admiration by those who 
haven't, planned a bed of flowers such as had 
regular times for opening and closing, so that 
89 



LITTLE GARDENS 

by looking at them he might know the time of 
day. This is possible. Morning-glories tell us 
when it is not time to get up, and the evening 
primrose announces when it is time to play whist 
and eat. But regardless of these rather strained 
uses for that which has a higher use than use, 
you will plant what you can always see and dis- 
cover promise in it, even when to the eye it is sere 
and its bare stems give no other voice to the 
winds than the threnody of winter. 

The general treatment of a small village 
yard will not differ materially from that of a 
yard in the city, but allowance must be made for 
the greater exuberance of country bloom. City 
dust and heat and all-night glare, and the reflec- 
tion of light and warmth from walls and fences 
and flagstones, do not tend to vegetal health. 
The country airs and dews will keep the plants 
in better trim than you can keep them in the city. 
Hence it is well to plant them a trifle more widely 
apart than you would in town, and to provide 
the supports needed for heavy growth. Be care- 
ful not to overload your trellises. I know of one 
man who uses an old steam-pipe for the stem of 
his trellis, and it supports a goodly weight of 
90 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

roses. In the roomier yard of the village, trees 
are also a possibility; hence, the shaping and dis- 
position of the beds will be with reference to 
keeping their contents out of the shade. Larger 
flowers, too, can be used in the decorative scheme 
than can be well employed in the city, for, 
whereas a row of dahlias might seem dispropor- 
tionate to a space in town, they would harmonize 
with the large surroundings of a country place. 
Then, the accidents of topography give chance 
for pleasant diversities from custom in the gar- 
den plan. For example, if there is a stone-pit, 
or a ledge, or a boulder at the end of the yard, 
it can be draped with vines and it becomes an 
element of the picturesque. Over in the Bronx 
country, opposite Fort George, New York, there 
is a villa which has, not behind it, but boldly 
planted in its front, just as the glacier left it, a 
sunken boulder which has been treated in this 
manner, and it is worth a good deal more, as a 
scenic feature, than much of the smugness to be 
found elsewhere. Again, it may be that a brook 
or little river will cross your property, and it can 
be shallowed and widened into a bay where you 
may plant water-lilies; or, if there is a boggy 
91 



LITTLE GARDENS 

spot, and you are sure that mosquitoes are not 
breeding there, It can be utilized for plants hke 
flags, marshmallow, marsh-marigold and forget- 
me-not. 

It Is wiser that these Incidents should be In- 
timate and domestic than to attempt grandiose 
or park-like effects. Indeed, even our park- 
makers, our landscape architects, as they are 
called, are conceding much to the taste for sim- 
plicity. Frederick Law Olmsted, who wrought 
a needed reform In this respect, aimed to pre- 
serve the natural landscape, merely softening It 
to human uses; to teach, and to satisfy men with 
the qualities of gentleness and loveliness; to re- 
move from sight all harsh, discordant elements, 
and to stimulate pleasures in the air, which yield 
health and content, and calm the fever of social 
life. In the park, private as well as public, he 
strove to conceal his art and pleasantly to deceive 
the wayfarer Into the notion that it was all nature 
in a holiday humor. We must regard our ground 
as a part of the home, and govern its use and 
ornament accordingly. In town nature has been 
humanized out of likeness to Itself, hence, arti- 
fice in gardening conforms, not merely In aspect, 
92 




ROSES IN PROFUSION. 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

but In spirit, to its setting. We may, indeed, 
give it as an axiom, that the more formal the 
house, the more formal the garden. In the 
suburb, or the village, we meet nature half-way, 
and our yard is not an uncovered greenhouse, but 
rather a link between the joy of home and the 
lawlessness of the wild. A village garden can 
be charming if it draws only on the fields within 
sight of the house for its materials, and it be- 
comes esthetically and morally useful if it teaches 
to the villagers the immanence of that beauty 
which, too often in their conceit, is a far and 
merchantable quantity. The city yard is an 
entity. The country yard is foreground for the 
large and affecting beauty of the hills. 

As to trees, it is possible to have too many 
of them, and too close to the house. Modern 
landscape architects will not hear your pleading 
for just one elm before the house, or just a couple 
of maples at the curb — that is, some of them 
won't. Sunshine in the house is the first desid- 
eratum, and that is proper. Spirits and sanita- 
tion both require it. Yet I do not give up the 
idea of trees on the premises. They should be 
massed, like the flowers, in groups or pairs of the 

93 



LITTLE GARDENS 

same variety, not scattered. A field with twenty 
trees will be spotty and complex if they are iso- 
lated, but if arranged in a cluster, or in lines that 
edge the property, there are seemingly more 
trees, and certainly more lawn. One big space is 
worth twenty little spaces. Nor should trees be 
permitted to close a vista. Rather, they should 
form a part of it. In forbidding trees to the 
lawn I mean that they are not to be dotted over 
it, but that does not prohibit us from using 
small and graceful trees like the Japanese maple, 
or weeping birch, or smoke tree, or a lilac, as 
part of a group in a composition. Be frugal of 
trees immediately at your doors, at least, if they 
threaten the light and air in your rooms. I am 
going to violate the law, myself, by having a 
pine-tree at the corner, when I acquire the right 
sort of corner. No other tree means so much in 
its speech, or baffles the listener more piquantly. 
Its mystery is its charm. In its sighing and whis- 
pering you hear the v^oices of the sea, the mur- 
mur of solitary streams, the questioning of re- 
leased spirits, the stirring of distant hosts. Its 
voice is large and cool, and it goes with the flash 
of stars on January nights and the peal of the 
94 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

wind when the sun begins to fall to the south. 
Like the other occupants of the home ground, it 
does not satisfy the eye alone; it addresses the 
mind and imagination. 

Perhaps you are frugal, or sociable, and pre- 
fer fruit-trees to pines. Better see that your 
neighbors are supplied with the like, then. I 
once had a pear-tree and a raspberry patch in a 
town yard. They were a harrowing experience. 
Some one had to run out every hour or so, and 
shoo the boys away — not that we cared about 
the pears, much, because they were of a variety 
I have never found anywhere else, being as hard 
as cocoanuts and as digestible as rocks; indeed, 
the rogue who stole one deserved to eat it; but 
the little rascals broke the limbs, impaired the 
symmetry of the tree, and the premises, trampled 
the flowers and made the grass as sadly in need 
of combing as their own heads. I had a notion 
to put up Charles Dudley Warner's " Children, 
beware : There is protoplasm here ! " But that 
would have brought them in to look for it. I 
might have strung an electrified wire about the 
yard, but the boys who had enjoyed an experi- 
ence with it would then have led in shoals of 
95 



LITTLE GARDENS 

other boys, who had not heard that the wire was 
loaded, in order to initiate them. You suffer 
from parasites, no matter what you grow — 
parasites in the forms of insects, weeds and boys. 
You can kill the weeds and insects. 

It is by the judicious use of trees that barns, 
stables, henneries and other structures that were 
anciently a sorrow to the eye, however much of 
a pride to the understanding, are concealed from 
observation, yet the tendency is to put up a barn 
so much larger than the home, and so much 
handsomer than the places in which many of the 
builders were born, that if I were they I would 
not screen these architectural triumphs by so 
much as a pea-vine. Where the outbuildings are 
not a source of pride, however, it is well to 
thicken the vegetation between them and the 
house. Perhaps in any case the stable is the 
better for a hedge about it, for while the upper 
part of that building may satisfy all demands of 
an esthetic nature, the lower portions are com- 
monly stained with reminders of earthiness, and 
green is pleasanter. Beside, apart from the pur- 
pose which a hedge will serve in this conceal- 
ment, its repetition of the long, flat lines of lawn, 
96 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

walk and other appointments is restful. Hori- 
zontal lines in a picture or a landscape give a 
sense of space, yet of repose, while upright lines 
are excitant — the precipices of Yosemite, for 
extreme examples. Still, it is more from con- 
ditions than from forms that we derive tranquil- 
ity. There are moods, to be sure, in which one 
becomes impervious to disturbing suggestions of 
the city, when we are in the thick of it; when the 
sun pours serenity from the sky, and the hardness 
that so often assails our ears and eyes passes out 
of a world that has ceased to be substance and 
has become aspect. Our grounds comfort us by 
the induction of these moods. In them we find 
the interest and rest which differentiate the home 
from other parts of earth. 

The ground of a country place should have a 
seeming tranquility, signifying that It Is a refuge 
from the storms of life: hence. In laying It off 
there should be no building up or digging down, 
without a better reason than precedent. It is a 
practise In some suburban settlements to place the 
house on an artificial knoll or terrace two or three 
feet high. This, I dare say, Is a survival of the 
custom of banking a house with earth, on the 

97 



LITTLE GARDENS 

setting in of winter, though if we see the Hfted 
house in a low, flat country it doubtless means 
that the soil is so muddy or so subject to over- 
flow that the residence has to be raised on a man- 
ner of stilts, for dryness' sake. This perching of 
a house on a knoll of such trifling elevation adds 
nothing to its dignity. It is otherwise with the 
early nineteenth-century mansions of New Eng- 
land that stand on natural elevations either near 
the road or at a few rods back from it. As a rule, 
the farther from a road, say, to a distance of 
five hundred feet, the more the aspect of impor- 
tance that a house takes on; but there are many 
fine old homes in eastern Massachusetts that re- 
main on terraces, left by the lowering of the 
highway grade before them. Usually the ter- 
race front consists of masonry, and noble elms 
and maples frame the entrance. There Is a sense 
of leisure and refinement in these old manses. 
A house that comes flatly to the roadside con- 
fesses, in that fact, either that its owner spends 
much of his time running for trains, hence, he 
can not spare a moment to cross a garden, or 
that he is so devoid of self-resource as to occupy 
himself at the windows, gaping at the pedes- 
98 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

trians and teams, when he might be studying 
sociology, taking naps or practising on the flute. 
The modern idea is to " get there." So we go 
by the straightest paths and aslc for short cuts, 
even in our learning. But I admire the reserve, 
the personaHty, the impHed resource of a house, 
say, hke Longfellow's. Standing thus apart, re- 
fusing itself as a unit in an architectural sum, or 
a social division in a block, it requires trees. 
They are needed at the curb to shade pedestrians 
and extend coolness, while they have the effect 
of sheltering the roof and adding to its privacy, 
if they are close enough to show above it. In 
such an instance there is room and even need for 
a garden in front, especially if the dwelling is 
colonial in period or in style, for the colonial is 
formal, while cottages and the usual farmhouses 
are not. If there are flower-beds before it, pos- 
sibly the resident may have no care for others 
in the roomier precincts behind it, yet that is 
where they show to the best advantage. When 
a house stands broadside to the road, as is the 
way in sundry of these old estates, it implies a 
wider garden than we find in the city where the 
dwellings squeeze up against the walk and dig 
99 



LITTLE GARDENS 

their neighbors in the ribs with their elbows. A 
broad house is pleasanter to view from its gar- 
den than a narrow one, and if only because of its 
amplitude, needs more of ornamental treatment. 
This it has from Gothic enrichments in the old 
English halls, and on the Continent it is begin- 
ning to take on outside decorations, often painted 
on gables and blank spaces. Because a large 
structure fills the eye more nearly, it causes the 
more discontent if it is ugly. If the garden has 
area enough, the house is seen at landscape dis- 
tance, and becomes important as a part of the 
picture; hence we can devise vistas with the 
house itself at one end, and a passage of agree- 
able scenery at the other. These effects, calling 
for landscape-gardening on a large scale, are 
hardly to be considered in a book on small 
grounds. They require at least an acre. The 
view, however, may be as free to the occupant 
of a hovel as to the owner of a Biltmore, and 
where it is present it serves for laying out the 
guide-lines of a garden composition. Here is 
a plan, carried into effect in a country place near 
Philadelphia. The view is supposed to be to- 
ward the rear. 

lOO 



THE COUNTRY YARD 




Fig. 1 8. — A, Flower-beds; B, vines; C, hedges; 2), 
pool, surrounded by coleus and plants with ornamental leaves. 

The back of the house Is draped with vhies, 
and tubbed yews and cedars are placed along the 
borders of the Avalk. The drive, by which car- 
riages may enter the premises from the high 
road toward a barn, which is rather distant and 
is not shown here, is spanned by an arched trel- 
lis covered with vines, so that a visitor is in- 
ducted at once into the garden, unless he enters 
by the front door. Hedges enclose the whole 
area and also partition the lawn from the kitch- 
en-garden, so that the vegetables are not in view 
from the front, although there need be no timid- 
ity as to exhibiting these In the country. 

lOI 



LITTLE GARDENS 



A place in New Jersey has a broad walk 
leading from the house toward a lovely wooded 
and watered valley, this walk containing a chain 
of flower-beds in the center, a border of lawn 
on either side, with close-set cedars along their 
boundaries, and hedges dividing the lawns from 
the walk. 




Fig. 19. — J, Flower-beds; B, potted cedars; C, planted 
evergreens. 

In this case the lawns and walk create the 
impression of a long reach toward the distance, 
and they incorporate the scene into the grounds, 
the more readily as a downward slope at the 
lower part of the yard conceals the end of the 
102 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

path, where it opens on the high road, so that the 
imagination trav^els farther over it than feet 
can do. 

For the more usual space in a suburb or a 
country village, a space of seventy by a hundred, 
or thereabout, which allows room for the de- 
tachment of the house, the next plan is submitted. 
It divides the territory with a fair degree of 
economy, and insures a lawn, a formal garden, 
several flower-beds, a few thickets, a place for 
drying clothes, a kitchen-garden, a grape-arbor^ 
with hedges about the property and also divi- 
ding the utilities at the back from the grounds 
reserved for pleasure and ornament at the front. 
In case the tract is more extensive, so that the 
barn and vegetable patch may be retired to a 
greater distance, they may be obscured by clus- 
ters of low-growing trees, with, perhaps, a single 
tall one to break their possible monotony. Trees 
so assembled should not be trimmed or lopped, 
except of dead or unsightly limbs; indeed, trees 
that do not close a view are generally to be left 
to their own devices. This scheme assumes that 
the pleasanter prospect from the house opens 
toward the right, across the formal garden, and 
8 103 



LITTLE GARDENS 

the broad walk extending from the front door 
through that reservation gives reach and fore- 
ground to it. When the view is distant and com- 
manding, the forespace should be kept as clear 
as possible, and the house and gardens should 
take on all the aspect of beauty and endurance 
that can be afforded. When it is near and ro- 
mantic — a dell, a cascade, a river passage — it 
can be framed in vegetation and the avenue can 
be narrower. 

If the shape and size of the ground are much 
as they appear in the last plan, but the shed or 
barn in the corner opens toward the road, so that 




Fig. 20. — A, Flower-beds ; B, place for drying clothes ; 
Cj fountain, pool, or statue -, X, hydrangeas or tubbed trees. 



104 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

a direct drive is better liked, the outlines may be 
altered to something in this fashion : 




^-'^JK.^- 



FiG. 21. — A, Flower-beds; B, trees; C, trees or large 
shrub in pots. 

In this scheme the stretch of lawn Immedi- 
ately behind the house serves for the drying of 
clothes; or, if the house is somewhat aloof from 
a settlement, or the residents are indifferent to 
observation, the grassy reach at the side, occu- 
pied by the long flower-bed with rounded ends, 
can be appropriated for that purpose. If the 
105 



LITTLE GARDENS 

driveway from the road to the barn or shed is 
muddy or otherwise unpleasant, it can be largely 
concealed from the view of the house-dwellers 
by running a hedge along its inner side, opposite 
the slender strip of green on which potted shrubs 
have been placed, or large and hardy bushes 
planted. A hedge is set along the rear of the 
premises, not to close the view of the " truck 
patch " merely, but to afford a background for 
the formal garden, the interest of which can be 
heightened if the circle in its center is a little 
pool or fountain. 

Some of the trees on the premises ought to 
be evergreens. You are grateful for them in 
winter. A little grove of firs and some rock work 
can diversify a far corner, or both of the remoter 
corners, in case you have no " truck patch," and 
no barn. And these evergreens need not be 
pines, hemlocks, spruces, cedars, yews, balsams 
and the like; they can include the rhododendron, 
andromeda, wintergreen, myrtle, and other 
shrubs that stay bright till after Christmas. The 
variety of smilax known as cat brier scratches 
and makes a tangle, but it is a bit of winter color 
that serves as well as holly for a Christmas deco- 
io6 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

ration. Holly and other berry-bearing bushes 
are to be prized also, for their fruit is as bril- 
liant as flowers at a time when nature carries 
her softest yet most brilliant effects away from 
the earth and paints them over the sky. There 
are fashions in trees, as there are in shirt-waists 
and parasols, and a present tendency is toward 
low-growing species, of " weeping " habit, 
though willows are no longer elected. " Weep- 
in' willers " environ some New England man- 
sions still, and in central New York a few ave- 
nues of poplars remain before the abodes of 
" elegance " — Lombardy poplars, " the proper 
tree, let them say what they will, to surround a 
gentleman's mansion," as an old writer observes. 
Tubbed trees of dark and solid green, privet, 
spruce, the West Indian bay, palms and rubber- 
plants are always useful, and in a small yard 
they can surround a floral square or circle. One 
fashion of dealing with them is to make a gravel 
ring about a flower-bed, place the tubs upon this 
ring, and plant a border of foliage plants still 
outside of them, to conceal the lower part of the 
tubs, as in Fig. 22. 

If the long dimension of the house fronts on 
107 



LITTLE GARDENS 




the street and wholly fills the width of the lot 
the yard at the back will repeat its shape. In 
such a case the yard might have an ornamental 
center with subcenters at each end. 

Of late we have seen an extension of Spanish 
mission architecture, a simple, and in some parts 
of the land appropriate style, not merely for 
churches, but for residences, and Orange, N. J., 
has chosen it for a jail, determined that her 
rogues shall go through the form of going to 
church. If a home built in this manner is large, 
and parked about, it makes as pleasant and al- 
most as picturesque an object as those Doric tem- 
io8 



THE COUNTRY YARD 







Fig. 23. 

pies we used to live in, back in 1820, and the 
early English castles — of granite, sometimes, 
and stucco at others — that were popular among 
the rich in 1850. The mission style really needs 
room, just as does the Greek and the Gothic, 
Still, in the Southwest, where they continue to 
use adobe, and agreeably follow the Spanish tra- 
ditions in their building, a mission residence 
would not seem affected or out of place on an 
ordinary suburban lot; and a yard given to grass, 
with a well, fountain or pool In the center, and 
an oblong or oval walk about It, Is a delightful 
109 



LITTLE GARDENS 

reminder of the monastic gardens of California 
and Mexico, and is possible where it is still the 
custom to draw water from a well, or where the 
water rises close to the ground level in a spring. 
If a well, it requires a high curb, lest the fre- 
quenters fall in; but if a basin, then a low curb, 
or no curb, would be permitted, I have seen 
such an arrangement, with the surrounding walk 
bordered with box, a safeguard that prevented 
the ramblers from stepping off upon the grass, 
as it might otherwise have pleased them to do. 
Naturally such borders seem disproportionately 
large, and if chey are suffered to attain to any 
considerable height they shut off the view from 
the walker in his own garden. Yet an alley of 
shade offers a pleasant vista in itself, and will 
have an air of cloistral seclusion that is pleasant 
to quiet souls; for, as they take the air at evening 
they will realize that they are not exhibiting be- 
fore possible spectators. A pool or fountain not 
being feasible, it preserves something of an old- 
fashioned aspect for the place if the substitute 
is made of a sun-dial, with a narrow rim of flow- 
ers about the pedestal, or a small vine clamber- 
ing up the standard. 

no 



THE COUNTRY YARD 

Arbors are to be viewed askant, unless at a 
remove from the house. They contribute to a 
crowded and top-heavy effect, unless there are 
individual reasons for them, such as the outdoor 
tea habit or a fondness for reading in the shade; 
but it would suit with a Spanish mission walk if 
the farther reach of it v/ere roofed by a pergola, 
slight and simple as possible in construction, and 
covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle — 
though the latter is so dense in its mode of 
growth that it shuts off air and light, even in 
winter, unless it is often trimmed — and opening 
on the yard in little arches or square windows. 
Such a walk would be for lonely contemplation, 
and would be for a poet, or an Englishman. 

And if an Englishman, and he really wishes 
seclusion — otherwise he is an American — and he 
is the owner of the property, he can substitute for 
the cheap, ugly, unlasting fence, which still sur- 
viv^es in the village, a brick wall which will give 
a support to his vines and a shield to all his gar- 
den from the winds. They are not a lasting joy 
to contemplate — bricks aren't — especially In sea- 
sons when the leaves are off, but It is possible to 
mitigate the plainness of a wall of them by insets 
1 1 1 



LITTLE GARDENS 

of terra-cotta panels or borders, such as are cheap- 
ly offered in these times, and wear nearly as well 
as brick itself. Should a garden be surrounded by 
a brick wall a large panel in terra cotta could be 
built into the center at the back, or a seat could 
be built out from it. The sculptor Pepys Cock- 
erell has recently finished a curious work at 
Lythe Hall, an estate in Haslemere, England, 
which consists in a frieze representing a hunt, 
chiseled from the solid brick of a wall which is 
farther ornamented by a coping above and but- 
tresses below, and which is surfaced with ivy to 
the base of the frieze. Were I doomed to live 
always in a city, I would have the view from the 
garden no less attractive than the view into it, 
and I would therefore try to give some dignity 
to the rear of the house by placing on it a large 
design in terra cotta, or even in color, and some 
beauty, by growth of vine and an exhibit of win- 
dow-boxes. The architectural scheme of the 
house should be carried into the stone or brick 
wall enclosing the garden, and — but I must wait 
till the ship comes home. 



112 



IV 

COLOR 

Taking us as a people, by and large, our en- 
joyment of color is rather barbaric. We have 
no objection to a lot of it, and if the key is high 
pitched it does not keep us awake. We have 
held puritanical objections to liveliness, whether 
of color, music, speech, thought or conduct, but 
either we did not recognize it in tints when we 
saw it, or we are recovering somewhat of that 
youth of the eye that it had before Cromwell 
blacked it for us. We improve in taste as we 
grow younger, and the hope that penetrates far 
into the future sees, even in our streets, such 
splendors as were seen in Florence in its days of 
greatness. Flowers can be vehement, though 
they seldom are, for green is a delicious solvent 
that brings them into relation, and often into har- 
mony: and, again, they are of a purity and trans- 
parency that softens them, even in contrast. If 
the hues of certain blossoms are a bit aggressive 

113 



LITTLE GARDENS 

in the sun, we are to remember that we seldom 
see them in full light, and that the shadows of 
leaves, tree trunks and walls do much to tone 
down what else would be too shrill. Then, it is 
more severe upon us to turn a single ray of sharp 
red or yellow upon the optic nerv^e than to flood 
it with the same color. We resent little effects; 
we want broad spaces and masses; hence, it is not 
well to have a quantity of unrelated tints in your 
garden. A solid bank of marigolds, azaleas, or 
what not, is a comfort in its mere aspect; we bask 
in it, and seem to appropriate from its color some 
delicate material for the building of the spirit, 
even as physicians have discovered varying path- 
ological values in reds, blues, greens, yellows, 
browns, grays and blacks — excitants and seda- 
tives. 

In flowers we have every primary and sec- 
ondary color, and many shades of each. May I 
be pardoned if I revert briefly to first principles. 
Light can be broken into three primary hues: 
red, yellow and blue. Mix any two of these and 
you have a secondary. 

Where red overlaps yellow, it makes orange; 
where it overlaps blue, it makes purple; where 
114 



COLOR 




Fic. 24. 

yellow and blue are blended, the result is green. 
In these six we have the rainbow, if you add that 
deeper blue we call indigo, on its outer rim, and 
that strange liver color which fills the space be- 
tween the two arches when there is a double bow. 
No color is black. Where all colors blend we 
have the pure white light — if we use the spec- 
trum, because if you mix pigments that way you 
have only a mess. We paint the earth when we 
plant flowers, but a charm of these little friends 
is the tender and ethereal quality of their color. 
A certain red in paint is thick and dull, but on the 
petal of a rose, peony or rhododendron it gleams 
like a jewel. 

Nature does not enjoy a reckless mixing of 
tints. She softens her distances by toning them 
115 



LITTLE GARDENS 

to blue, in harmony with the sky and sea; her 
universal green is the most restful and satisfying 
of all hues : with what splendid sweeps of her 
brush of sun-rays does she change our woods in 
autumn, and what lovely purples and violets 
we have when the blue of a few miles of air 
blends with the red of the oaks and maples 1 
Our garden will be more rich if we treat it as 
the artist treats his canvas, and avoid harsh con- 
trasts and tiny dabs of color. Sow yellow with 
a generous hand, and the earth will smile its con- 
tent. Unless, to be sure, you are one of those 
who have an aversion to it, in which case, take 
another color. For myself, I find beauty in any 
tint, but I ask that it be used purely and be kept 
from jangling with every other. And the way to 
use it, is to use it largely and simply. The limits 
of a garden are so small that you may think you 
are forced to plant primaries side by side, and 
find that they jar a little. If you interpose a 
touch of that with which you want a color to har- 
monize the thing is done. For instance, you 
have a bed of red nasturtiums, and you wish to 
put some yellow flowers in the center or about 
the borders. Then use orange nasturtiums as 
ii6 



COLOR 

blenders, for they contain both yellow and red. 
So long as you keep to one kind of flower you 
are in little danger from discords, because here 
again nature attests her esthetics and gives war- 
rant for our own. For it is a well-known fact in 
botany that the flowers of any plant species will 
be restricted in their coloring to two of the pri- 
maries with, probably, the Intermediate tint, that 
comes of hybridizing. For example, the rose 
rejects blue and keeps to red and yellow. It also 
adds white, for that does not commit the plant 
which elects it to the use of the third primary. 
The rose has almost every shade of red and 
pink; it has a gamut of yellows; it even threatens 
to blend these and produce an orange rose, but 
has gone no closer than a salmon tint, so far; 
but you will find no rose with a purple cast, for 
that would promise a divergence into the third 
and forbidden primary — blue. We shall prob- 
ably never have a blue rose; at least, the labor 
of experts and centuries in the endeavor to pro- 
duce one has come to naught. We should not 
care as much for it as for the rose of to-day If 
we had it, I dare say; at least, after the novelty 
had worn off. 

117 



LITTLE GARDENS 

Taking another family, we find the same rule 
proved: the chrysanthemum Is yellow, red and 
white, with blended hues, but never blue. In the 
aster, which It resembles, we have, on the con- 
trary, no yellow, but red, blue and white, com- 
monly the red tinged with blue and the blue 
showing a trace of red. In the sweet pea we 
have blue and red but faint yellow ; in the azalea, 
red and yellow, but no blue ; the canna and gladi- 
olus exhibit various shades of red and yellow, 
but no blue; In the cineraria we have a lively ex- 
hibit of ruddy blues, but never a touch of yellow; 
the geranium has several shades of red, with a 
scarlet that indicates an admixture of yellow, but 
there Is no geranium which sows a hint of blue; 
the bellls copies the color range of the aster, 
hence it is not yellow. There are a few excep- 
tions; for instance, we have red, yellow and blue 
in the columbines; and the violet is both yellow 
and purple, the latter a mixture of red and blue; 
but these exceptions are just enough to prove the 
rule. t 

If, however, we put flowers of unrelated 
famlhes into close touch with one another we 
may perpetrate an Inharmony now and then. 
ii8 



COLOR 

Some boldly throw complementary colors to- 
gether. A complementary, or opposite, is that 
color which is not contained in the complemented. 
Thus, red is the opposite, or complementary, of 
green, a compound of the two other primaries, 
and vice versa. If we look intently on yellow, 
then quickly turn away, or close our eyes, we 
shall see purple, that color representing the com- 
bination of those other two primaries which yel- 
low is not; if we look away from blue, we shall 
be conscious of orange. Some ingenious pictures 
were published a few years ago called " Ghosts." 
One looked for half a minute steadily at a 
green rose with red leaves, and turning his head 
smartly looked into some shadowed corner, 
where after a few seconds, a phantom rose, of 
normal color, duplicating the form that he had 
impressed upon his eye, appeared, sometimes 
with surprising clearness. In the same way, the 
picture of a sheeted figure in black became a 
ghost in white when the observer looked away 
from the plate, and off into a darkened room, 
while a figure in white repeated itself in black 
against a white wall. These experiments ac- 
count for a good many supernatural appearances, 
9 119 



LITTLE GARDENS 

and are of physiological Interest no less. But 
what the eye does as by mechanism Is not of ne- 
cessity a guide to that which we shall do with our 
hands. Complementarles when crudely juxta- 
posed, yellow with purple, and orange with blue, 
are apt to get to quarreling with one another 
when our backs are turned. Veiled and softened 
by air and shadow, nature's primaries, whether 
used with opposltes or not, seldom clash disturb- 
ingly, but close at hand, in our home plot, It is 
better to harmonize than to contrast. The cooler 
and quieter colors fit themselves more easily 
to a miscellaneous company than do the gayer 
ones; indeed, we can make one rule suffice: to 
keep cool and warm colors apart, each in the 
society of its like. The scarlet of geraniums is 
acid, but it is less endurable when supported by 
a sharp, high green of the same " value," than 
when offset by a darker green. Put a glaring 
scarlet geranium alongside a bright blue flower 
of any sort, and there is liable to be a riot. Scar- 
let geraniums are rather intractable things, yet 
apparently the most popular of pot-plants. They 
are effective in borders and masses, but those of 
a rich China red, and of pink and white, are more 

I20 



COLOR 

agreeable and more generally useful. Comple- 
mentaries make one another more intense. If 
we put the yellowish leaf of a nasturtium against 
the magenta of a cineraria, the former becomes 
more brilliant, and the latter more rich and 
solemn. But if we put a crimson rose beside the 
cineraria, and maybe, place a bunch of purple 
grapes before them, we should have three re- 
lated colors and a harmony, eliminating, of 
course, the nasturtium leaf. If, on the contrary, 
we were to put the cineraria into a combination 
with a ripe orange and a bit of cloth of a bright 
blue-green — secondaries, all — we should have 
three semitones of a major chord, and semitones 
make discord when they are not separated. 
Flowers that have a tinge of blue, or red or yel- 
low In common may be used safely. If it is, for 
any reason, necessary to bring colors near one 
another that are addicted to quarreling, use as 
pale tints of them as possible, because white is a 
wonderful quieter and sweetener, and separate 
them by green, or some medium tint, if they can 
be kept a little apart. Almost any color justifies 
itself when it Is exuberant In quantity, yet the 
finer and softer tones of It win us, In the end. 

121 



LITTLE GARDENS 

When in doubt, use white. That is safe with 
all colors. It does not make a harmony with 
them, any more than green makes harmony. We 
are to regard it rather as light. We can enjoy 
the effect of marble statuary, balustrades, urns, 
columns, stairs, curbs and walks in formal gar- 
dens, and the white of this stone grows the softer, 
yet the surer, for a backing or surrounding of 
somber yews and rhododendrons. It is pure and 
passionless and seems always to express engaging 
innocence, whether we find it in the rose, the 
hyacinth, the locust or the water-lily. I wish we 
were not so frightened by the possibility of it in 
our costumes, and did not confine it to varnished 
shirts, tin collars and boiler-plate cuffs. Every 
one looks well and younger in white, and nobody 
looks well in black. So, in flowers, white may 
not dazzle or surprise; it does not gratify the 
barbaric fondness for show; it is not sensational; 
but it is always welcome, always comforting; no 
less than green it expresses serenity and health. 



122 



FLOWERS IN THEIR SEASON 

The main thing in our garden-making, is not 
the shape of the beds, nor even the arrangement 
of what is put into them : it is the plants and flow- 
ers we grow there, not forgetting the grass. And 
in respect of flowers, one has a wide and dehght- 
ful choice. There is an almost irresistible temp- 
tation, on the part of beginners in yard garden- 
ing, to overdo the matter and to put more plants 
into the ground than the ground will feed, and 
more than suflices for appearance. The canny 
seedsmen understand this willingness to be 
tempted; they feed it and reap an exceeding great 
reward. They realize that every catalogue they 
publish, with its gaudy colored plates of cannas, 
such as never grew for any human coaxing, and 
verbenas that stand up with military conse- 
quence, putting up massive heads of gorgeous 
blues and crimsons, instead of straggling help- 
lessly over the bed, looking for a place to lie 
123 



LITTLE GARDENS 

down and go to seed, and of cosmos that springs 
to a six-foot measure in a couple of nights and 
flaunts around the premises in clouds of pink and 
red and white — they realize that the man who 
receives these eternal blazons will brood over 
them, In a state of increasing helplessness, falling 
deeper and deeper into the toils of his own and 
the seedsmen's imagination as he does so, until, 
wholly victim, he opens his desk and composes a 
check, in return for which he receives certain 
envelopes of seed, and sundry unpromising frag- 
ments of root or cuttings and various withered 
bulbs, all of which may, yet now and then, do 
not, explode into floral fireworks a few weeks 
later. Commercialism is a dreadful thing, and 
when flowers get into it they do not appear to 
exercise any more restraint on the moral habits 
of their growers than If they were pig-iron, or 
sausages. 

Yet, do not suppose that the seedsman Is a 
natural enemy of small gardeners. Far from it. 
Some of the things I have bought from him 
were better than he advertised, especially as 
they acquainted me with the pleasures of hope. 
For, after all. It Is not the product In which we 
124 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

take the greatest joy : it Is in the producing. We 
owe daily thanks to Adam for our garden prac- 
tise and our habit of work. A man who has 
made things grow has been pleasantly and 
healthfully occupied, his imagination has been 
enlarged, but he does not believe in print to the 
same extent as before he began to read floral cat- 
alogues. Still, there is no doubt that the people 
who write catalogues, and more particularly, 
illustrate them, wish that flowers did grow just 
as they do on their pages. Why shouldn't they 
wish it? As compared with usual blossoms of 
the same names, theirs are as w^atermelons to 
mangel-wurzels. 

In choosing flowers for the little garden you 
will pick out enough at the beginning to fill some- 
thing less than three acres. The array you con- 
template is as magnificent as any in the demesnes 
of royalty. But looking out upon the space at 
your disposal, and the figures that represent your 
bank-account, you sigh regretfully, run the blue 
pencil through your order and begin the practise 
of self-abnegation, which is alleged by those ad- 
dicted to it to be good for one's morals. 

Up here in the temperate zone we can not 
125 



LITTLE GARDENS 

have the flowers, even in our greenhouses, that 
make the tropics gaudy. We have vegetal 
beauty and abundance of it; but there is no such 
wonder of grace, such passion of color, such ex- 
travagance of perfume as we find, say, in the 
West Indies, where the tree jasmin loads the air 
with fragrance, and the flamboyant [poinciana 
regia) burns like the flaming bush and carpets 
the roads with red after a wind — a red more 
gorgeous than that of our October woods. 
When we do fetch an exotic into our yards, it 
may survive, but it will never be the same as in 
its native soil. So let us content ourselves with 
what shall grow with ease and certainty. If we 
can not have the jasmin we can cultivate the tube- 
rose, which is as sweet; if not the flamboyant, 
we can have the croton, galax and poinsettia in 
our borders, and the sunflower, dahlia and chrys- 
anthemum in our beds. And in buying plants 
you have before you two methods and a com- 
promise. The first method is to fill your garden 
with hardy plants that come up year after year 
with little or no urging or attention. The second 
is to have a change of contents every year by 
setting out potted plants — annuals — that you 
126 




A WINiJOW IN OHIO 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

buy from florists in the spring, or that you may 
raise from cuttings, seed and roots, if you have 
a greenhouse or a cold frame, and such plants 
will bloom once and be seen no more. The com- 
promise is to give a part of your garden to the 
sure and sturdy things, and reserve places for 
annuals and opportunities and experiments. My 
own election would be for perennials, if I were 
bound to a choice, but one enlarges his knowl- 
edge and deepens his interest if he tries the effect 
of new soils and new conditions on plants with 
which he is unfamiliar. The common wild flow- 
ers are always inviting for this purpose, and are 
never more delightful than when we find them 
in the strange and seemingly uncongenial sur- 
rounding of a city yard. 

If you resolve on the hardy garden, choose 
those plants that really are hardy and will not 
die in a sharp winter. A backing of bushes near 
the fence is desirable, any way, if you have room 
for them. If you have annuals, assign them to a 
separate space, where the spading and planting 
will not imperil the roots of the perennials al- 
ready in the ground. Study the cultural direc- 
tions given on the seed-packets, but remember 
127 



LITTLE GARDENS 

that some annuals, like the poppy, hollyhock 
and portulaca, seed themselves so abundantly 
that you have no need to plant them after the 
first year. Arrange the garden so that the small- 
est of its contents shall be nearest. For the back 
row plant vines and flowering bushes — lilac, 
rose, rudbeckia, syringa, rose of Sharon, rhodo- 
dendron, snowberry, snowball, smoke-tree, wei- 
gelia, oleander (to be taken indoors in cool 
weather), even a small magnolia; or, tall an- 
nuals like hollyhock, sunflower, artichoke or ele- 
campane. These will stand at a height of from 
five to eight feet and will cover your fence from 
view. Then, before them can be set things like 
the tall varieties of phlox, dahlia, golden-rod, 
Joe Pye-weed, marshmallow, yucca filamentosa 
and mullein. Why, but these last are weeds ! 
As you please. A weed by the name of a garden 
flower is quite as handsome as many garden 
flowers that are weeds in their own countries. 
Our mullein, for instance, is really a distin- 
guished vegetable, and If it were less common 
we should raise it in our conservatories alongside 
of our orchids and gloxinias. In Holland it is 
cultivated, and is spoken of respectfully as the 
128 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

American velvet plant. Then, a step lower 
than these we can have the peony, Dutchman's 
breeches, bleeding-hearts, larkspur, cardinal 
flower, lily, iris, the common daisy, canna, salvia, 
gladiolus, tuberose, Canterbury bells and others 
of a like stature. Still advancing toward the 
path, for you will not hide the small plants by 
putting the big ones in front, are poppies, colum- 
bines, gas-plants, funkia, candytuft, pinks, the 
low-growing phlox, balsams, zinnia, mignonette, 
heliotrope, indeed, a majority of the garden fa- 
vorites. Of course, if these plants — or any other 
— are used, their color relations must be consid- 
ered, not less than their height, and in planting 
we must also regard their habit of growth : not 
merely whether they grow lengthwise, but 
whether or not they spread out sidewise. If this 
matter is neglected we may plant a gaillardia or 
amaryllis, and have to look for it later under the 
spread of a stramonium, or find it strangled in 
the clasp of a clematis or woodbine. 

It was Lord Bacon's idea that a garden 
should always be in bloom. So it should, and so 
it will not be. Bacon's quaint essay on the sub- 
ject supposes an immense tract laid out with ave- 
129 



LITTLE GARDENS 

nues, arbors, fountains, lawns, and an edge of 
wilderness. In a space like that it would not be 
difficult to have a succession of blooms so long 
as the weather permitted any. It is worth while 
to quote from this discourse, if only to observe 
how little or how much of the English language 
has become incomprehensible in the last three 
centuries : 

" God Almightie first Planted a Garden. 
And indeed, it is the Purest of Humane pleas- 
ures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the 
Spirits of Man; Without which, Buildings and 
Pallaces are but Grosse Handy-works: And a 
Man shall ever see, that when Ages grow to Civ- 
ility and Elegancie, Men come to Build Stately, 
sooner then to Garden Finely: As if Gardening 
were the Greater Perfection. I doe hold it, in 
the Royall Ordering of Gardens, there ought to 
be Gardens for all the Moneths in the Yeare : In 
which, severally. Things of Beautie, may be then 
in Season. For December, and January, and the 
Latter Part of November, you must take such 
Things, as are Greene all Winter; Holly; Ivy; 
Bayes; Juniper; Cipresse Trees; Eugh; Pine- 
Apple-Trees; Firre-Trees; Rose-Mary; Lavan- 
13Q 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

der; Periwinckle, the White, the Purple, and the 
Blewe; Germander; Flagges; Orenge-Trees; 
Limon-Trees; And Mirtles, if they be stooved; 
& Sweet Marjoram warme set. There followeth 
for the latter part of January, and February, the 
Mezerion Tree, which then blossomes; Crocus 
Vernus, both the Yellow, and the Gray; Prime- 
Roses; Anemones: The Early Tulippa; Hia- 
cynthus Orientalis; Chamairis; Fretellaria. For 
March, There come Violets, especially the Single 
Blew, which are the Earliest; The Yellow Daf- 
fodil; The Dazie: The Almond-Tree in Blos- 
some; The Peach-Tree in Blossome; The Cor- 
nelian-Tree in Blossome; Sweet-Briar. In Aprill 
follow. The Double white Violet; The Wall- 
flower; The Stock Gilly-Flower; The Couslip; 
Flower-Delices, & Lillies of all Natures; Rose- 
mary Flowers; The Tulippa; The Double Dio- 
ny; The Pale Daffadill; The French Honny- 
Suckle; The Cherry-Tree in Blossome; The 
Dammasin, and Plum-Trees in Blossome; The 
White-Thorne in Leafe; The Lelacke Tree. In 
May, and June, come Pincks off all sorts, Spe- 
cially the Blush Pincke; Roses of all kinds, except 
the Muske, which comes later; Hony-Suckles ; 

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LITTLE GARDENS 

Strawberries ; Buglosse ; Columbine ; The French 
Mary-gold; Flos Africanus; Cherry-Tree in 
Fruit; Figges in Fruit; Raspes; Vine Flowers; 
Lavender in Flowers; The Sweet Satyrian, with 
the White Flower; Herba Muscaria; Lilium 
Convallium; the Apple-Tree in Blossome. In 
July come Gilly-Flowers of all Varieties; Muske 
Roses ; The Lime-Tree in blossome ; Early Peares, 
and Plummes in Fruit; Ginnitings; Quadlins. 
In August, come Plummes of all sorts in Fruit; 
Peares; Apricockes; Berberies; Filberds; Muske- 
Melons; Monks Hoods, of all colours; Peaches, 
Melo-Cotones; Nectarines; Cornelians; War- 
dens, Quinces. In October, and the beginning 
of November, come Services; Medlars; Bullises; 
Roses Cut or Removed to come late; Holly- 
hokes; and such like. These Particulars are for 
the Climate of London; But my meaning is Per- 
ceived, that you may have Ver Perpetuum, as the 
Place affords." 

Your yard shall be the clock of the seasons 
if you plant with reference to the flowering time. 
Thus, we put bulbs into the earth in fall, for their 
appearance so soon as the snow is gone. The 
first warm days bring points of green to the sur- 
132 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

face, and before the trees have shot out a leaf 
we have the crocus, white, blue and yellow, 
clinging to the ground as if to retire if it had 
miscalculated its chances for prosperity. In their 
hardihood some of the spring flowers are de- 
ceived, and are cut down in a night by sudden and 
cruel freezes. We prize these drops and flashes 
of color at more than their intrinsic worth, no 
doubt, because they are the first. We should not 
care a great deal for the anemone, the bloodroot 
and the liverwort if we were to find them in the 
summer. The opulence of loveliness that sur- 
rounds us then would blind us to the modest and 
brave little creatures that are its heralds. Still, 
not all the spring flowers are small. There are 
hyacinths, most prized of the bulbs, with spikes 
of white, pink and pale-blue flowers, thick-set, 
often double, deliciously fragrant, and fairly 
lasting; for, so early in the year few insects have 
arrived, and it is the effort of flowers to last until 
the insects, seeking nectar, fertilize them and 
" set " the seed. Then we have the freesia, fine, 
delicate, well-nigh as fragrant as the hyacinth. 
Other first appearances that inaugurate the eight 
months of bloom are those of the grape hya- 

133 



LITTLE GARDENS 

cinth, crown imperial, snowdrop, bluebell, the 
bellis or English daisy — the " wee, crimson-tip- 
pit flower " of Burns's apostrophe, which I have 
found, self sown, as an escape from American 
gardens; and in your wild corner, if you have 
one, the tawny lily that we call dog-tooth violet, 
because it is not a violet and does not represent 
a dog's tooth, and is as unwisely called adder's- 
tongue; the fragile spring-beauty, squirrel-corn, 
the anemone; then, among the woods we come 
upon the Dutchman's-breeches (if this name 
offends you, call them white hearts) and trail- 
ing arbutus, that peddlers tear up from the New 
England and Long Island woods to hawk about 
our streets. Before April is over we have in our 
gardens the candytuft, clarkia, gilia, California 
poppy, Drummond's phlox, daphne mazereuni, 
goldenbell, June-berry, shadbush, spicebush, Ju- 
das-tree, Japanese quince, and such boughten 
things as you may have had from the florist and 
put into your flower-beds, pots and all, against 
the sharpness of spring winds. 

There is little danger from frost in the lati- 
tude of New York after the beginning of May, 
although the month may be raw and the output 
134 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

of flowers but slight. In that season the colum- 
bine, everlasting, jack-in-the-pulpit and wake- 
robin are springing in the glens, and in your 
yard, if you have planted them, you may watch 
for the moss-pink, daffodil, jonquil, tulip, sum- 
mer snowflake, dogwood, tulip-tree, magnolia, 
barberry, kerria, lily-of-the-valley, silverbell, for- 
get-me-not, lamp-plant, rock-cress, tree-peony, 
sweet alyssum, godetia, marigold, ten weeks' 
stock and baby's-breath. 

In June the garden will be in full flower; the 
sweet peas will enrich the air, the morning-glories 
will open their eyes to the sun before you open 
your own, the roses will unfold their damask 
to the butterfly, the lilies will arise to teach their 
seldom-heeded lesson of humility and worth, the 
nasturtium will reflect the warmth as well as the 
light of summer, and while the fields and brook 
sides are ablaze with dandelion and buttercup, 
you, in your pleached garden may rejoice in the 
peony, iris, wistaria, pelargonium, cineraria, 
marigold, amaryllis, and, in the wild garden, the 
harebell, Solomon's-seal, shooting-star, bunch- 
berry and columbine. 

Color flows in high tide across the earth in 
135 



LITTLE GARDENS 

July, All the tender things we house during the 
cold season are in bearing out of doors. The 
locust and catalpa have dropped their blossoms, 
the rhododendrons are passing, but the syringa 
exhales its luscious odor, if it is one of those 
years when it deigns to do so, the chestnut is 
putting out its belated, rusty looking clusters; in 
the fields are seen the golden stars of the St. 
Johnswort, the button-bush, pepper-bush, and in 
wild ground in the South the yucca has thrown 
up its candelabrum of wax-white blossoms; while 
the beds are aflame with zinnia, crinum, spirea, 
pansy, pink, bachelor's-button, salpiglossis, the 
red and yellow lilies, coreopsis, calceolaria, ge- 
ranium, painted daisy, balsam, cockscomb, love- 
lies-bleeding, four-o'clock, galllardia, phlox, 
nicotiana, portulaca, (this seeds itself, and will 
grow next year,) alyssum, fuchsia, scablosa, 
white and pink yarrow, sweet-william, and on 
our arbors, the coboea, honeysuckle, moonflower, 
passion-flower and Dutchman's-pipe are span- 
gled with bloom. 

The fierce heat and sultriness of August are 
tempered by a continuance of most of these blos- 
soms, and the showering of the garden with a 
136 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

hose, on a still, warm evening, is a more compo- 
sing occupation than struggling with a crowd 
at the beach or listening to rag-time music on a 
roof. The vines now blooming include not only 
those just named, but the wild bean, the night- 
shade, the balloon, the trumpet-creeper, the vir- 
gin's-bower, the Japanese hop, the perennial pea ; 
the hydrangea has put out its bunches of dull 
pink and greenish-white flowers, long lasting; 
the blue spirea, the sweet alder, balm, lychnis 
and maurandia are at their showiest; and the 
giants, the sunflower and hollyhock, lend of 
their pomp. 

September continues the pageant with canna, 
gladiolus, ageratum, candytuft, musk-plant, cos- 
mos, heliotrope, verbena, zinnia, funkia, giant 
daisy, rudbeckia, dahlia, mignonette; the cardi- 
nal-flower blazes on the edge of the damp wood; 
the witch-hazel puts out Its uncanny little sprays ; 
in the hills the sweet peas are at their best; there 
are the late roses, too, and the dahlia, poppy and 
nasturtium are gay in the country gardens. In 
the bulb corner the tiger-flower and blazing-star 
have emerged, the Japanese anemone and showy 
sedum are up in the rockery, the boneset is feath- 

137 



LITTLE GARDENS 

ering in the pastures, the pondweed and water- 
hly add color and fragrance to the pools. 

In October the flowers are in rivalry with the 
trees, for the mountain sides are gardens, and the 
maple, beech, birch, oak, sumac, brambles and a 
thousand lowly things paint the scene with splen- 
dor. Now the asters, wild and tame, constellate 
the gardens and the roadsides, and late golden- 
rods add touches of warmth to the chilling fields 
and to the hollows among the dunes. If the 
frosts have held off, the stout old favorites 
of the garden are still putting forth and the bees 
are humming over them. We find the petunia, 
gaillardia, alyssum, candytuft, clarkia, godetia, 
marigold, stock, goldentuft, poppy, blue spirea, 
sedum, starwort, sunflower, hydrangea, daisy 
ileabane, which-hazel and swamp-flower. We 
are also likely to find freaks — plants that have 
decided to bloom a second time or put out a sec- 
ond crop of fruit. I have seen a horse-chestnut, 
stripped of one clothing of leaves by caterpillars 
in a birdless town, put forth a new crop of leaves 
and a multitude of blossoms in the fall. The 
last rose of summer may be found blooming in 
October. I have never been in the country in 
138 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

that month when I have failed to find raspberries 
in bearing, and in the White Mountains, after 
several nights of frost, I have battened on black- 
berries, and have noted how active the foxes had 
been in gathering the fruit before me. We are 
liable to have a fresh output of honeysuckle, and 
the dahlias are lingering. Dandelions I have 
found in bloom on Long Island in every one of 
the twelve months, though not of the same year. 
But October is the month of the chrysanthemum, 
and unless the weather becomes intolerably cold 
it lasts into November. It seems as if nature 
made a final effort to hold the admiration of her 
children; hence she beams up from the fading 
earth with a smile, fitful and pathetic, yet as 
bright as summer. 

In November we find lingering a geranium, 
possibly, or a petunia, or some of the coarser way- 
side growths, but the beauty of the garden has 
passed, unless it is a Southern garden, or a garden 
in California, for there it is always spring in the 
air and summer on the earth. It is the certainty 
of winter, however, that makes us, who have it, 
prize the fleeting beauty of the garden all the 
more, though we may envy the people of warm 

139 



LITTLE GARDENS 

places in that the flowers they grow are so large, 
so gorgeous and so late. Not that this invari- 
ably applies, for some plants prefer the cold, and 
I have never seen finer sedums than are grown in 
the public gardens of Halifax, nor does the 
camomile put out bigger blossoms than on the 
rocky shores of New Brunswick, 

Maybe you would prefer to plant for color, 
rather than for season, for in that you have the 
joy of all seasons. When I am rich and have ten 
acres I shall have color beds in my garden, so 
that I may enjoy a blaze of yellow now, a rous- 
ing, martial red at another time, and bring down 
the sky upon my kingdom, or simulate the snows 
in fragrant white. I will have spaces for daffo- 
dils, yellow iris, cowslip, yellow lilies, chrysan- 
themums, goldenrod, cloth-of-gold and Persian 
roses, calceolaria, coreopsis, coneflower, colum- 
bine, cinquefoil, canna, helipterum, marigold, 
nasturtium, escholzia, zinnia, gaillardia, golden- 
tuft, St. Johnswort, black-eyed Susans, barberry, 
honeysuckle, currant goldenbell, kerria Japonica, 
dahlia, yellow water-lily, buttercup, elecampane, 
and the big, honest sunflower — we raised one 
last summer that was eighteen inches across the 
140 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

disk — while In the borders will appear the yellow 
shades of alternanthera, coleus, pyrethrum, ire- 
sine and cockscomb. 

Then, either at another season or in another 
place, shall be a bravery of red roses, blooming 
in beds edged with the red and variegated alter- 
nanthera, ireslne and acalypha; here, too, shall 
be the geranium, the cardinal-flower, poppy, 
rhododendron, azalea, chrysanthemum, aster, 
lotus, salvia, Chinese primrose, red lilies, 
begonias, morning-glories, currant — a reck- 
less mixture of species and seasons, this — 
diervllla, splrea, Japanese quince, burning-bush, 
balm, stock, peony, coral bells, phlox, Japanese 
anemone, carnation, amaryllis, galllardia, heli- 
chrysum, portulaca, verbena, zinnia, love-lies- 
bleeding, and, most gorgeous of all, the cocks- 
comb. This Is not a true flower, but nothing in 
the world has finer color. It Is the deepest, rich- 
est red conceivable; the most intense ruby and 
garnet; the most vivid stripe In the rainbow. No 
rose blows more glorious red, and rarely do we 
see the like at sunset. The orange cockscomb is 
no less wonderful, and as a decoration we need 
both. 

141 



LITTLE GARDENS 

Then, in the cooler beds of pink there should 
be hyacinth, bouncing Bet — don't misprize this 
fragrant and pretty blossom because it grows 
wild — amaranth, balsam pink, clarkia, cosmos, 
sweet pea, gillia, bleeding-heart, lychnis, holly- 
hock, peony, dianthus, and in the pond the 
tinted water-lily and that splendid borrowing 
from the East, the lotos, though this likewise 
occurs in white and pale blue, as to its flowers. 

In the blue and purple beds should appear 
the hyacinth, grape hyacinth, fleur-de-lis, violet, 
columbine, cineraria, heliotrope, hyacinth bean, 
mourning-bride, ageratum, bachelor's-button, 
lobelia, nemophila, blazing-star, shooting-star, 
aster and larkspur. 

As for white, there is no end to it. One can 
help himself to syringa, weigelia, rhododendron, 
azalea, moonflower, crocus, hyacinth, tulip, iris, 
daisy, rose, lily, water-lily, lily-of-the-valley, 
achillea, yucca, nicotiana, phlox, sweet pea, sweet 
alyssum, columbine, tuberose, stock, rock-cress, 
candytuft, geranium, baby's-breath, pansy, aster, 
chrysanthemum, petunia, dahlia, peony, bean, 
honeysuckle, snowball, snow drop, hydrangea, 
and so on, from wistaria down to portulaca. 
142 



FLOWERS IN SEASON 

All this time I am not forgetting that there 
are to be lawns to frame and offset these splen- 
dors. Never forget that grass is to be your rich- 
est crop. You will rest in its color, it will be car- 
pet to your feet, and after the mowing it will 
reward you with fragrance, at least, if you have 
mixed clover with it. Our soft-breasted earth 
yields treasure to her children for the asking, yet 
never in such free wise as at haying time. And 
by keeping to beds of a single color, as you 
agree to leave your lawns to the single color, 
green, you gain a simplicity which the eye best 
comprehends. You need not sacrifice variety to 
obtain it, but merely allow flowers of a petal to 
group together. They are happier In one an- 
other's company than in that of strangers. 



143 



VI 

THE CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

In making a choice of flowers for the home 
garden do not buy exotics and tender things. 
They will not grow, at least, without housing in 
the winter; and if you own the usual little house 
and little patch of ground around or back of it, 
you can hardly add a conservatory to your estab- 
lishment. Plant the hardy things. And first of 
them is the rose. This flower, in its various 
phases modest, flaunting; demure, sumptuous; 
timid, aggressive; solitary, social, is probably the 
oldest of all the treasures of the garden. It 
is the flower of Venus and of Mary; it has 
wreathed the brows of emperors and martyrs, of 
poets and revelers; it has figured, not merely in 
sentimental and religious traditions, like those 
of St. Rose and St. Elizabeth, but in history, for 
had we not a war of the roses? Of our garden 
it is queen; or shall we give that rank to the lily, 
and greet the rose as king? There is a mascu- 
144 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

line, rather than a feminine splendor in the Amer- 
ican beauty — a French variety, by the way, that 
thrives best in our soil — and the habit of the 
bush, in taking what it wants, and in clinging to 
its vantage in the soil, is virile. The old-fash- 
ioned, sturdy kinds are best: those that defy the 
seasons and outlive neglect and wreck. Last 
fall while scrambling through a lonely region in 
the Green Mountains, I came upon a cellar on a 
deserted farm. The building which once stood 
above it had entirely rotted down, a jungle of 
vegetation covered its dooryard, but tall and 
strong above a thicket of raspberries stood a 
bush of damask roses, flaunting year after year, 
untended and unseen. Of all that the farmer 
had planted, this and a few gnarly apple-trees 
survived. The homeliness of farm life had van- 
ished, and a faint echo of its beauty came out of 
the past. Three or four miles away I culled a 
bouquet from a self-extended thicket of crimson 
roses before another deserted place. Now, 
plants that behave like that are good to know, 
and to grow up with. They are as reliable as 
grass. Their yearly appearance, their opulence 
of scent and color, endear them to us as home 
145 



LITTLE GARDENS 

is endeared; for they become, literally, a part of 
it. I hope to see, one day, such rose farms as 
they have in France and Persia ; acres, yes, miles 
of red and white, grown for the attar and other 
extracts, but though we have none of them we 
can still make our gardens beautiful. For some 
nurserymen are devoting themselves entirely to 
roses, thereby seeming to betoken the unfailing 
popularity of the flower, and their list of vari- 
eties is surprising, not to say, confusing. After 
trying sundry of the new strains I go back to the 
standards with increasing satisfaction. The new 
varieties, especially those of dwarf habit, deli- 
cate color and tea fragrance, are floral toys, made 
only for the greenhouse, or for balmy lands 
where the natives never feel the invigorating 
frosts of the North. At least, my experience is 
that such roses peak and pine out of doors, even 
in genial weather, they are subject to insect pests 
and diseases that less affect the larger bushes, 
and they are uncertain in their blooming. Of a 
number that I set out in a sheltered yard one 
summer, all died but two or three, and they ex- 
hausted themselves in putting forth their buds. 
Last summer a dwarf plant gave birth to a huge 
146 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

pink rose, as large as a La France and of fine 
fragrance, but It killed Itself a-doing It, for so 
soon as the petals fell the bush shriveled Into the 
ground and was seen no more. Wherefore, I 
say, place your reliance on the tried and true, 
unless you have a greenhouse, or desire to ex- 
periment. The best of roses will not grow for 
us In the East as their humbler sisters will flour- 
ish for the Callfornians, but the effort to bring 
them to a sturdy maturity is self-rewarding. Of 
the better known of the tea-roses, mention is due 
to the Marechal Niel, La France, Mermet, Bon 
Silene, Bride, Meteor and Mme. de Watteville. 
These do well In the South, but do not look to 
see them survive a New England winter out of 
doors. Of the reliable kinds there are, among 
the reds, the Jacqueminot, often called Jacks by 
florists, Roslere, De Rohan, Wilder, Verdier, 
Carrlere, Rothschild, D'Aumale, LIbaud, Ber- 
nardln, Neyron and Bruner; among the pinks. 
Magna Charta, Favorite, Christy, Prince of 
Wales, Prevost, Lyonnalse, Rothschild and Ver- 
dier; of the white and blush roses, Mrs. Paul, 
Elise Boelle, Mabel Morrison, Margaret Dick- 
son, Altaica, Perle des Blanches, Hybrid China ; 
147 



LITTLE GARDENS 

of the moss-roses, Hermosa and Clothilde Sou- 
pert; and there are the chmbers, Dawson, Car- 
mine, Pillar, Wichuriana, Seven Sisters, Thalia, 
Prairie Queen — sturdiest of them — and Mary 
Washington. 

It may be that some of the old strains do 
not bear as they did; that they have been urged 
to exhaustion, like the potato, for the scientists 
tell us how in propagating this tuber from eyes, 
instead of seed, we have violated the method of 
nature, and as a consequence, the potato will dis- 
appear, along with the buffalo, the dodo and the 
Indian. You have noticed, of course, that po- 
tato plants seldom bear their balls or seed pods 
now, although they did thirty years ago. It is 
against the popularity of the rose that, on some 
bushes, the flowers do not remain so long as could 
be wished, yet there are other varieties which are 
quite as enduring as any other plant that we 
grow, unless we may except the geranium. I 
have had a hybrid blooming in my yard for a 
month together, and it often happens that a 
second crop of flowers appears in the fall. This 
is a bushy rose, six feet high, bearing flowers of 
mingled pink and white. We are told that once, 
148 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

when St. Francis of Assisi was tempted by 
thoughts of comfort and sufficiency, he rushed 
from his cell, stripped off his robe, and rolled in 
the snow. There were briers in the drifts, and 
wherever they brought blood the snow disap- 
peared and the crimsoned stalks burst into 
bloom; but, lo ! only half the petals were red: 
the others were as white as the snow and stain- 
less as the spirit of the saint. My rose, I think, 
came from Assisi. 

I require that a rose have fragrance, whether 
it has endurance or not. Hence, I have small 
enthusiasm for the ramblers, crimson, yellow and 
white, that have attained a sudden vogue with 
us, and that produce bunches of small, papery, 
scentless flowers. For me they produced noth- 
ing, for they died promptly and made way for 
something stouter. Yet they are pleasant to 
look at: these wiry little climbers. They are 
decorative; they bear hundreds of blooms, in 
clusters as large as a fist; and when they spring 
from a congenial soil they climb vigorously and 
their leaves are green and wholesome, therein 
contrasting with the foliage of some relatives, 
which turns rusty, at least, in town, and is much 
149 



LITTLE GARDENS 

beset by worms, beetles and thrip. The two 
former you often dislodge when you shower the 
plant with a hose, and you may throw some of 
them to the ground by shaking the bush, in which 
case you will shake off more petals than insects; 
but the thrip, which in its nymphal form is a 
whitish fly, hardly an eighth of an Inch long, 
with a baffling, parabolic manner of flight, clings 
to the under side of the leaves and escapes wet- 
ting and observation. Soot has been used to 
destroy these vermin, but a bush covered with 
soot is even more unsightly than a bush covered 
with parasites, because you can see the soot. 
And again, there is not much soot in town; at 
least, there should not be, for it gathers thickest 
where we permit the burning of soft coal and 
the making of impure gas — enemies of gardens, 
by the bye. Powdered white hellebore, in solu- 
tion, syringed over the bushes, is said to be harm- 
ful to thrip. If the new ramblers are unsavory to 
these little feeders, that, to be sure, is a reason 
for cultivating them; yet I think there is no plant 
that is not a joy to some manner of creature that 
we believe ought not to be there. 

Why is it that we see so few of the yellow 
150 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

roses any more ? Has our use of the term yellow, 
as an adjective of contempt, and applied to vul- 
gar and vicious things, made us afraid of using 
this joyous color? True, you see magnificent 
cloth-of-gold roses on the Pacific slope, great 
vines and bushes of them that bury a cottage 
out of sight, and Yankeedom clings to its old 
Persians, but the yellow rose has elsewhere fallen 
into a neglect that is wholly undeserved. Let us 
not revolt at a mere name. We are assured, on 
high authority, that a rose by any other name 
will smell as sweet. Where the yellow roses 
bloom, one spot of earth is gay with sunshine. 
The sun may shine in our north, too; at least, the 
growers vouch for the hardiness of the standards 
and especially commend the Belle Lyonnaise, 
Harrison's Yellow and the Persian. If you buy 
them, get such as are " on their own roots" — 
that is, not grafted — for they are strongest, and 
flower most plentifully. 

Of late some use has been made of the rosa 
rugosa, a wild variety from Asia, in parks, hotel 
lawns and other places where strong vegetation 
and solid masses of green are needed. A bush 
of it is not a bad centerpiece for the little gar- 
" 151 



LITTLE GARDENS 

den, for It bears abundance of pink and white 
flowers, bright and cheerful in color quahty, and 
single or double, as may chance; while its big 
red haws are almost as decorative as flowers. 
Our common wild rose or sweet-brier is one of 
the pleasantest of familiars, and one of the most 
fragrant; but it is not lasting, and it can not be 
cut for bouquets, which facts, no doubt, have 
prevented it from gaining a hold in our gardens 
it might otherwise deserve. Whatever roses we 
employ, it is best to group them into beds or 
clusters, or keep them near the fence, if the 
ground is small. In November they will endure 
the cutting out of weak growths, and in the 
spring, of sprawly new ones. Some gardeners 
cut down all roses to within a few inches of the 
ground, at the coming on of winter. Though 
my own roses have defied cold weather, it is sa- 
fest to wrap the stems in sacks when snow is due, 
to heap earth above the roots, and strew old 
manure and straw over the beds. A spring 
manuring does more good than fertilizing in the 
fall, but the snow covers from sight what is 
never pleasant, while in the spring the plant 
food asserts itself to at least two senses. 
152 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

Next in importance to our roses — to many 
the most important of all the garden contents, 
since they are the largest objects, and have the 
use not alone of beauty but of hiding the un- 
beautiful — are vines. And by all means culti- 
vate a honeysuckle. Train it over a trellis at 
your back door, or over a part of your fence. 
If you have any sheds or unsightly buildings on 
your premises, cover them with it. Its flowers 
are not much to look at, but the deep, strong 
green of its leaves stays through the winter, at 
least where it mats together, and there is nothing 
more delicious than the odor breathed through 
its tiny trumpets in call to the bee. If I could 
have but ten flowers they should be the rose, 
lily, lily-of-the-valley, lilac, nasturtium, petunia, 
pansy, sweet pea, aster and honeysuckle. This 
vine can safely be left to itself, once it has been 
started, and it needs no more than occasional 
thinning out, for it has a tendency, on arbors 
and summer-houses, to put out such masses of 
leaves, and to so knot and twine itself together 
that It forms a screen against the air and light. 
It can be employed to cover walls of brick or 
stone, and there is an estate in Tarrytown, N. Y., 

153 



LITTLE GARDENS 

which for a mile is hedged with honeysuckle. 
A walk past the grounds on a quiet evening, with 
delicate incense pouring from a million censers, 
is a memorable experience. It can also be grown 
near the sea, and visitors to Brighton Beach will 
recall the veranda of the immense hotel, partly 
overgrown with honeysuckle, its exquisite fra- 
grance mingling with the saline pungency of the 
ocean that roars and pounds but a stone's toss 
distant. 

A useful and handsome vine of larger ex- 
pansion and more rapid growth is variously 
known as Boston ivy, Japanese ivy, and ampelop- 
sis. It has a leaf resembling that of the maple, 
only more compact and shiny, and in October 
it vies with that tree in the beauty of its color. 
It is almost the only plant that shows autumnal 
tints in town, for there is that in the air of a city 
which causes vegetation to rust and wither when 
it has ripened, instead of taking on the sunset 
glories of the woods. This ivy is a tremendous 
grower. It will blanket a three-story front in a 
couple of years, and sprawl over two or three 
buildings on either side. It throws out hundreds 
of branchlets that dangle from the stronger stems 
154 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

and are covered with tiny resinous drops. These 
are to be persistently snipped away, for they will 
creep in at window-casings, between sashes, 
through area gates, under doors and over chim- 
neys; they will fasten their little suckers against 
stone, brick or wood; and pretty instances of this 
covering occur in the permanent awnings of wire, 
which are supports for the ivy and make a frame 
of green for the view, as seen from within. 

Another quick-growing, wide-spreading vine, 
of use in covering displeasing buildings and bar- 
ring dull views or transforming tall fences, is the 
cobaa scandens. Its large leaves are of especial 
service in concealments, although it has not the 
charm of fragrance and its flowers are less beau- 
tiful than those of some other creepers and ding- 
ers. It may cause trouble from the reckless way 
in which it extends itself, for it will lay hold upon 
anything, whether clothes-lines or flower-stems, 
and seem to mock the efforts made to curb its 
pranks. 

In the country, too, they are beginning to see 
that the common gourd, cucumber, squash and 
pumpkin vines are of value as curtains and deco- 
rations. The pumpkin, especially, with its big 
155 



LITTLE GARDENS 

leaves, can be taught to clamber over sheds, rick- 
ety walls and fences, stone-heaps, ash-heaps and 
other disagreeable happenings, while it makes a 
superb setting for a back door. Take one pump- 
kin out of the corn-field, and let it have the run 
of the back porch. 

The wistaria, beloved in the East, but in none 
too common use in our country, is a pleasant vine 
and an early bloomer, putting out compound 
leaves that are light and graceful, and fine clus- 
ters of white or pale-purple flowers that look 
almost like bunches of ripening grapes, at a little 
distance. These pendant masses of color are 
particularly charming, and are unlike the bloom 
of any other cultivated vine. The Japanese 
make an effective use of the wistaria as an en- 
hancement to the grace of arches and bridges, 
the screening of rockwork, and in covering the 
trellises of tea-gardens. Vines in full flower sug- 
gest jets of water leaping from a fountain's lip, 
or the shower of colored lights from a rocket. 
The wistaria is of slow growth, and in our cli- 
mate requires years to establish itself; still, once 
with you, it means to stay. Its stem grows thick 
and tough, it strengthens itself by gnarling its 
156 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

various branches together, and it grasps a tree 
with a veritable strangle hold. One in a yard 
in New York has put out a mass of wood nearly 
equal to the tree that supports it — an aged tulip, 
I think — and were the tree to fall, the immense 
trunk of the wistaria might continue to hold the 
mass of the vine somewhat above the earth. 

There is nothing like morning-glory for cov- 
ering fences and sheds. Once admit this vine 
and it will befriend you forever. If it remained 
where you put it you could make no objection, 
but it will by no means do that. Its flowers of 
white, pink, purple, delicate mauve and blue 
would justify it for your use, even if its clean and 
thrifty foliage did not. It is a swift grower, a 
copious bloomer, a useful and pretty plant, that 
deserves not to be discouraged. In Dayton, O., 
where so much has been done to make mechanic 
labor content with its lot — so much in the way of 
prizes, free libraries, reading-rooms, recreation- 
rooms, cost-price restaurants, baths, rest-rooms, 
gardens, medical service, sanitation, music, lec- 
tures, picnics, schools; and after all, this did not 
prevent a long and bitter strike — a successful 
effort has been made to reform the appearance 

157 



LITTLE GARDENS 

of a rowdy district through the use of flowers, 
lawns, vines, window-boxes and greenery. The 
effect has been reformatory, not merely on the 
appearance of the quarter, but on the character 
of Its dwellers, for It has become one of the quiet- 
est and most agreeable sections of the city. 
Until the renters were stimulated by offers of 
money for the best kept yards, the houses near 
the factories had a forlorn environment. They 
were surrounded by trampled grass, weeds, rick- 
ety constructions and refuse. Now, a view over 
the fences behind a house row will disclose abun- 
dance of flowers, and the morning-glory Is espe- 
cially In evidence as a covering for the fences. 
It fairly loads those partitions with bloom and 
leafage, and we have a park or garden where all 
was squalor. The morning-glories are actually 
rampant, and they pile upon the fence like green 
breakers, flashing with multi-colored bubbles In 
the early sun. 

When the architecture is worth while we do 
not want to conceal it; and in almost any event 
we do not wish to cover it with vines so thickly 
that the purpose or form of the construction be- 
comes a matter for surmise. If Boston ivy, for 
158 




SHADI, AND BLOOM IN FROlLSiON. 




M 






BEDS OF LETTUCE. 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

example, were in the habit of throwing long 
twists of branches or bunches of flowers into the 
air, at right angles to its upright growth, we 
should not be sure of the form of the house on 
which it grew; but as it is, we lose nothing of 
the shape, because it fits itself so snugly to the 
bricks. Vines that pour over the premises, 
throwing a deep shade, especially through the 
windows and into the living-rooms, are to be 
avoided; and so are those, for house-front use, 
that wilt and turn yellow or rot with dampness 
or frost. Our morning-glory is not for attach- 
ment to houses, unless it is ruthlessly displaced 
when it has ceased to be green and to bear 
flowers. 

Experienced physicians can practise medi- 
cine with ten drugs, and gardeners can produce 
all the effects they wish with half the variety of 
plants that the amateur considers needful. So, 
with wistaria. Ivy, ampelopsis, honeysuckle and 
morning-glory, one hardly requires to extend his 
knowledge of vines; yet If conditions of soil or 
climate exact It, he can add or substitute for these 
Indlspensables the prolific cobaea, the excellent 
arlstolochia, the moonflower, the trumpet-vine, 
159 



LITTLE GARDENS 

the Madeira vine, the canary-bird vine, the cy- 
press-vine, the scarlet runner, the perennial pea, 
the Japanese clematis, the matrimony-vine and 
the passion-vine with its broad and open blossom 
in which pious teachers of the faith discovered 
the sacred symbols : the crown of thorns in the 
corona, the stigmas representing the nails, and 
the anthers the wounds. Our native passion- 
flower, by the bye, produces a berry which is 
eaten by some people. A deal of food goes to 
waste in this country from not knowing where 
to find or how to use it. We must also remember 
the hop, which can be trained over large spaces. 
These are all easy growers, generous in bloom. 
In remoter parts of the country grounds, where 
ledgy and unkempt areas invite them, we can em- 
ploy the roadside growths. There is the bitter- 
sweet, for instance, a skilful climl)er, dappled 
with orange berries, in the season ; there is clem- 
atis, or traveler's joy — though why it is more 
of a joy to the traveler than wild grapes and 
blackberries I never could tell — with its hoary 
tufts and its decorative leaves; there is our wood- 
bine, whose leaves rival the flowers in their Oc- 
tober coloring; and there is even poison-ivy, 
i6o 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

though It is best to show consideration for the 
public, and to check this, rather than extend it. 
It is not an ill-looking vegetable, and in the fall 
it often takes on ripe and delicate tones of pink 
and orange which make it ornamental, and the 
harm it does, to such as can be harmed, is com- 
monly due to the fact that it Is so little recognized. 
It is sometimes mistaken for woodbine, albeit 
the plants are quite unlike. If the leaves occur 
in fives you are to know that it Is woodbine, and 
you may put a finger on each leaflet; but if they 
are in threes, it is poison-ivy, and you are to treat 
It with respect. I handle it without gloves and 
with impunity, as I fancy most people can do; 
yet I have known persons to break into unseemly 
eruptions merely because they had passed to lee- 
ward of a thicket of this plant. In Chlckamauga, 
the site of the great camp during the Spanish 
War, this weed grew as plentifully as the black 
snakes, yet there were hardly more than two or 
three soldiers to a company who showed the Ill- 
effects of contact with it, though the tales they 
told of the power of " poison-ivory" were dismal 
enough, and their appearance, with swollen faces, 
patched with ointment, which gave to them a 
i6i 



LITTLE GARDENS 

peculiar ghastllness, roused unfeeling laughter 
from the Immune. 

There Is one other vine, which we seldom 
cultivate as such, yet that Is useful where It is 
not desired to carry vegetation to a greater 
height than five or six feet, and that Is the nas- 
turtium. This usually grows so thinly when It 
Is carried upright that there Is no danger of Its 
throwing the shade that the larger and heavier 
climbers will cast. And of course, there are the 
sweet peas, but we are to regard them less as 
vines than as garden plants. Vines are rather 
more human than shrubs. They are selfish. 
They grasp for support, and do not care what It 
is they rise by, so long as they rise. We say that 
the plant does not think, and possibly It does not, 
but Its career symbolizes all life, and nothing In 
the physiology of the walking races Is more won- 
derful than Its adjustment of pistil and stamens 
to propagation by means of the Insect that feeds 
upon It. Yet I am by no means sure that the 
vine does not see and feel and think, and in the 
wilful and unaccountable conduct of morning- 
glories and sweet peas In reaching across spaces 
for support — how otherwise do they know it is 
162 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

there ? — we have matter for deeper study than 
other garden problems offer. 

So surely as our garden has roses it should 
have lilies. With roses, lilies and vines it is a 
garden in sooth. These flowers are apart from 
most others in form and mode of growth, and 
they are of surpassing loveliness. In their ex- 
quisite purity, their white humility, their exceed- 
ing fragrance, which one breathes with a sort of 
rapture, they stir, not merely admiration but 
emotions akin to those we feel in contemplating 
the qualities of the lily in a member of the human 
family : emotions of affection, touched with rev- 
erence. These are flowers that saints have borne 
about the earth, and are thought to bloom in 
heaven. The old masters show the angels 
wreathed with lilies. And they consort charm- 
ingly with the rose; that is, their simplicity and 
silver whiteness make them a foil to the other 
flower, passionate, rich colored, and its slender 
leaves are a contrast to the luxuriant bush. 
When we have planted a rose, a substantial, free- 
blooming damask, or a hearty old cabbage-rose, 
at the back of a bed, it can have no better com- 
pany than a lily. Remember : we can use white 
163 



LITTLE GARDENS 

with anything, except black, which fortunately 
does not occur in flowers, but only in the evening 
dress of men — and dreadful guys they look at 
night, as their great-grandchildren will tell them 
a hundred years from now. Though a trifle tall 
for a border, any or all of the lilies will make a 
good appearance against a green background, 
care being taken to avoid such other contrasts 
as cheapen the red and yellow of some varieties 
when placed near other flowers. The wood-lily 
and tiger-lily, for example, are of a tawny or 
foxy shade that suffers by contact with the crim- 
son of a rose, the pink of a peony or even the 
scarlet of a geranium. They can better abide 
near zinnias, marigolds, nasturtiums and core- 
opsis. Of hardy varieties, like the candidum, 
auratum, speciosum, longiflorum, tenuifolium 
and funkia, all are safe to plant about the be- 
ginning of November, in partly shaded beds, 
at a depth of five or six inches, and during their 
first winter out of doors the bulbs should also 
be protected with a mat of leaves, or old manure. 
Other plants ask the same kindness, in their first 
winter, and it is as well to grant it to all of them, 
whether they ask it or not. The loss by frost 
164 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

will be less, and the bloom will be earlier and 
more abundant. 

Bearing the name of lily, but of a different 
family from our queens, is the lily-of-the-valley, 
a pearl in the garden crown, a blossom with 
spring in its breath, a symbol of innocence and 
humility. The only fault I urge against this 
plant is that it does not bloom forever. That 
it is said to be a poison affects me not a whit, 
so long as it feeds my eye and nose. Leave a 
little space for it in the shade of the house, or of 
the wall, enrich it, and leave it to itself. Its 
hardiness commends it for the carpeting of odd 
spots that are shady and damp, though myrtle, 
moneywort and partridge-vine are better liked 
because they grow more thickly, and their green 
lasts longer. 

So close akin to the lily in leaf, form, shape 
of flower and carriage of it that they are sup- 
posed by many to belong to the same family, are 
the zephyranthes, which put up a six-lobed bell 
of pink; the tigrldia, topped with a fantastic, 
orchid-like blossom of a scarlet, at once soft and 
bright; the amaryllls, of a red usually more sul- 
len, though rich and deep, and a habit more 
165 



LITTLE GARDENS 

assertive; and the crinium, even more proud and 
flaunting. But all these require coddling. They 
must be taken In during the winter, and rested; 
or they can be kept Indoors as window-plants; 
and at best they are uncertain. An amaryllls 
that bloomed regularly and splendidly on a hill 
farm In Vermont, behaved sulkily when It was 
translated to New York, though It did give 
a good account of Itself a year or two later. If 
one has no greenhouse, or cold frame, he may 
feel obliged to forego the cultivation of many 
flowers that tempt him in the seedsmen's cata- 
logues; yet a dry, clean cellar, which Is cool but 
never frosted, suflices for the keeping of bulbs, 
tubers, corms and roots that require removal 
from the soil for the winter. Such roots ought 
to be first dried, then placed In paper bags, 
plainly labeled in ink, and so stored on shelves 
or In boxes that the name shall be upmost, for 
otherwise moisture from the root may obliterate 
the writing, and I have found that one is able to 
forget various things between November and 
March — so many that, In the first season, at any 
rate, it is well to mark the place of each plant 
with a stake, (a clothespin will do,) after its 
i66 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

stems have died down. Because of neglecting 
this I have played mischief with some of the 
hardy things in the soil; I have attempted, for 
instance, to set out heliotrope and mignonette in 
spots already occupied by tulips and chrysanthe- 
mums, with results disadvantageous to the latter. 
A faithful gardener will not only indicate his 
buried treasures by stakes or stones, but he will 
make a map of his territory and mark upon it 
the place and name of each of them. 

For early bloom, among the hardy species, 
we rely on the crocus, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, 
narcissus, daffodil, snowdrop, snowflake, tulip, 
squill and trillium. These all arise from bulbs, 
which should be planted in three inches of light 
loam in the fall, but which are sometimes put 
into the earth on a mild day in January, when 
there is no frost in the bed, and when they are 
well mulched to prevent nipping by frosts that 
are sure to pinch our noses before spring fairly 
opens. The bulb plants, particularly the crocus, 
squill and tulip, are excellent for massing. The 
others are at their best when planted as borders. 

None of these, save the tulip, which makes all 
too brief a show, gives to the garden the richness 



LITTLE GARDENS 

that comes to it later In the season, when the 
dahha blooms; but this Is not a hardy plant. Its 
tubers are to be taken up and dried, after the top 
has withered, the new growths divided from the 
old, and all kept in the cellar till it is time for 
planting in early spring — a treatment that may 
be given to the canna and gladiolus, also. You 
could fill your yard with dahlias yet have hardly 
any two plants alike, for there are something 
like four hundred varieties, widely diverse in 
height, form and color. They range through a 
gamut of red and yellow, with strains and 
touches of intermediate orange, and they appear, 
likewise, in pearly white, which affects both of 
the basal tints, so that we have refined pink, 
ethereal yellow, and blossoms dappled and 
streaked In wilful fashion. The dahlia comes at 
a time when flowers are welcome, when chill 
weather is Impending, and when most of the 
tender things have ended their year's delight. 
Its fresh, strong-looking foliage is no less charm- 
ing, as the tree leaves begin to fall, than are its 
flowers. Its bloom varies considerably In size, 
from hard little nubbins, which seem to have 
tightened their petals to keep out the cold, to 
i68 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

the new Colossus, with flowers a foot in diam- 
eter; still, in the average, it is a dignified plant 
and requires to be treated with the respect it con- 
fers on itself. It is not proudly self-confident; 
there is no swagger in its attitude; its gently 
bending head betokens a certain modesty, as well 
as pride; hence it should be allowed to enjoy the 
room and state that are conferred on the distin- 
guished. It is neither king nor queen of flowers, 
but it wears the coronet of the aristocracy. And 
while it is not hardy, it has more life and more 
latitude than people know. I can show some 
handsome, healthy specimens in a New England 
village a thousand feet above the sea, and they 
kept on blooming last fall, after several sharp 
frosts had shorn and bedraggled not a few of 
the stouter blooms. It has a disagreeable habit 
of dropping its head on provocation that to an 
observer seems insufficient. A smart wind, a 
stout rain, a chill night, an interloping dog, will 
shake down a dozen fine knobs when it is in its 
prime. To remedy this tendency it is well to 
put it into rows, with some care for its support 
against the elements, either in the form of a wire 
net fence, or individual stakes to which we can 
169 



LITTLE GARDENS 

tie the stems. Where stakes are used in a garden 
they should be painted green, that they may 
show as httle as possible, and that they may agree 
with the vegetation when they are seen. If the 
dahlia never put forth a bud, its rich leafage 
would make it prized for a hedge, and against its 
green wall white flowers, such as the lily, agera- 
tum, centaurea, dianthus, stock and nicotiana 
show clearly and beautifully. To allow for their 
spread of leaf the tubers of the dahlia should 
be placed two feet apart, but an effect of greater 
solidity is obtained if they are planted in a 
double row, and the front rank is opened so as 
to show that in the rear, thus : 




Fig. 25. 
170 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

In such a case it would better insure their safety 
if a strip of wire net, such as is used for fencing 
poultry-yards, were extended behind each row, 
and the stalks tied to the wires, to hold them 
stiffly against the shock of wind and flood. 

There is another good old grower of our 
grandmothers' gardens, that we can hardly over- 
look: the hollyhock. It is taller than the dahlia, 
coarser, weedier in its leaf, and as its buds open 
one after another, they shed their petals and go 
to seed, leaving long spaces of knobbed stalk, so 
dry and bare in appearance that one is reminded 
of the neck of a bantam after a fight with a big- 
ger cock. Yet the round, sonsie face of this 
hearty, house-loving, wholesome rustic is full of 
cheer, yes, and beauty, too. In its white and 
pink aspects it is refined, even, but the crimson 
variety suggests the strength of sun and soil, and 
it seems to have good red blood running through 
its veins, in place of sap. I have found that the 
hollyhock will seed itself, under certain condi- 
tions, but its appearance is best guaranteed by 
planting the seed of it in early spring. 

And speaking of color, we ought to make 
more of the zinnia than we do. It is a highly 
171 



LITTLE GARDENS 

useful bedding plant, Inasmuch as It blooms gen- 
erously and In a surprising number of hues. 
Doubtless Its lack of odor and a certain harsh- 
ness of texture and stiffness of carriage has to 
do with Its lack of popularity, but Its opulence of 
hue would make amends for more defects, If It 
had them. The flowers remain long, holding 
their color somewhat like the everlastings, so 
that they have an appearance of life after they 
have really faded. It Is almost inconsistent, in 
our notion, that an herb so thick of leaf and 
petal should show such delicacy and even love- 
liness of tint. This flower avoids the blue, hence 
it accepts the red and yellow rays, and the variety 
of these tints that It exhibits Is larger, I think, 
than that of any other flower which Is equally 
confined in its range of form. It has not the 
limpid, brilliant white of the rose, the lily or the 
camellia, but a white of opaque and grayish qual- 
ity, yet It grades down from this high light to a 
crimson, full and deep enough for the robe of an 
emperor, through a range of pale yellow, lemon 
yellow, gold yellow, orange, salmon, scarlet, pink- 
red, and hints at a purple mixture in magenta, 
solferino and a refined tone of lilac. These colors, 
172 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

varying though they do, can more easily be assem- 
bled In a single bed, because of their softness, 
than we can put together a diversity of most other 
species. The full reds will make the solferino 
cheap, hence It Is better to sacrifice the one or the 
other, removing It to a distant patch. If you like. 
I do not understand the hostility to purples and 
purple-reds that Is shown, and no doubt felt, by 
so many people. It is especially surprising that 
women should object to them, because they al- 
most invariably gain in bloom from a touch of 
purple near the face. We have aniline dyes of 
these tints that are unpleasant, but, then, most 
of the anilines are unpleasant, and It Is a good 
part of them that they all fade so quickly. The 
colors of the cineraria, which are ringed about 
the petal edges of that daisy-like flower, and 
which range from the blue of a June sky to deep 
and splendid maroons, magentas and solferinos, 
are superb — as pure and beautiful as sunset 
clouds and twilight skies In high altitudes, 
though differing In quality. We find these col- 
ors, too, and their modifications, in petunias, 
sweet-williams, centaureas, pansies and pyre- 
thrums, and such tints are best grouped by them- 
173 



LITTLE GARDENS 

selves, or, at any rate, associated with green and 
white, and kept away from the shouting scarlet 
of the geranium and the assertive yellow of the 
marigold. Zinnias have occupied a group by 
themselves in my little garden, and have luxuri- 
ated in a light and pebbly soil, interspersed, to 
my sorrow, with relics of a glacial age, among 
which I shall not include tomato-cans and whale- 
bone. They like water, and will eat a trifle of 
fertilizer and be thankful for it in the spring. 
Like other annuals, they are to be sown during 
the last of April, or a few days later, if the sea- 
son is backward, and it may be well to relate here 
that the manner of planting such seeds is to stir 
the ground with a rake, or with a spade, if it has 
not been previously loosened, breaking up tough 
and clayey clods, and smoothing the surface; 
then, with a stick or trowel-tip, marking a tiny 
trench, half or two-thirds of an inch in depth. 
Into this the seed are sprinkled. With the stick 
or trowel flick the displaced earth back into the 
crevice, then crumble soil over the bed for half 
an inch or so, with the hands if the tract is small, 
with a sieve if otherwise. A light sprinkling 
with the hose may follow, using only the finest 
174 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

nozzle, so as to give a spray and not a shower; 
or, a little ducking from the watering-pot will 
serve. The object of this is not only to stimu- 
late the seed, but to settle the earth about it. 

Nearly all florists advertise packets of mixed 
seed. Artistic gardening is not encouraged by 
their use. If you buy a packet of zinnia seed, for 
example, you do not know, until the buds are 
actually opening, what you have put into the 
ground. By that time it is rather late to trans- 
plant, for even if the individual herb that you 
take from the soil is not injured in the process, 
you may seriously disturb the roots of its neigh- 
bors. If you find color inconsistencies and if you 
want to avoid cheap and glaring contrasts, you 
must dig up the plants, however, that are most 
belligerent in their blooming, and put them else- 
where. When there was no room in the beds for 
these intruders I have stolen out, in dark seasons, 
and transplanted them in vacant lots, hoping that 
they might prove a joy and astonishment for 
some wayfarer across those wilds, or for the chil- 
dren playing after school. One other item anent 
the planting of your garden, namely : begin weed- 
ing early. Don't tear up your choice things by 

175 



LITTLE GARDENS 

mistake, and there, you see, is another reason for 
marking the burial-place of the seeds, bulbs, 
roots and tubers. You will shortly learn to 
know the ragweed, pigweed, carpetweed, thistle 
and purslain or " pusley " — if you do not al- 
ready know them, to your sorrow — and will have 
at them without mercy. The Spaniards have a 
wise old saw to the effect that it is never well to 
work between meals, so I pull my weeds before 
breakfast — sometimes. At all events, the earth 
is so softened by the night dews that these alien 
growths come out most easily while the soil is 
yet damp. If the bed is long, you will whip them 
out with the hoe, but if small, and especially if it 
is thickly set with flowering plants, you must 
bend to your work and displace the intruders 
with a long, strong haul. Oh, yes: it's hard to 
do, when your hands are soft, your cheeks white, 
and your withers wrung, but there is a fine sense 
of brag, which you may speak or not, when you 
go in, sweaty, grimy, blistered, and you can not 
count that day lost in which you have toiled with 
a hoe, a spade, or a lawn-mower, as you may 
count some days in the hospital or on the stock 
exchange. 

176 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

Higher in the color scale than the zinnias are 
the nasturtiums, and in the make-up of a house 
garden we must not overlook these, its eminently 
cheerful citizens. They want the sunshine, and 
they soak it up and give it back in generous meas- 
ure. Their color is really warm; it smacks of 
mustard; it lightens their very stems and leaves; 
they are even hot to taste, and they pickle the 
seed pods in the country, for a condiment. Yet, 
be it noticed that they do not assail the eye as 
a scarlet geranium will do, for the eye can not 
penetrate the petal of a geranium : it is as opaque 
as china, while the nasturtium is as translucent 
as colored glass. Moreover, the green of the 
nasturtium leaf is as high keyed as are the orange 
and yellow of the flower, so that there is a har- 
mony of color well up in the treble. Even the 
soft and satisfying pinks and crimsons of this 
plant have an undertone of yellow. Theoret- 
ically you could arrange a disk or circle with a 
gradation from central warmth to marginal cool- 
ness, by putting nasturtiums in the middle, sur- 
rounding these with salvia, geranium, ruddy 
marigolds and poppies, these in turn with phlox, 
red poppies and the like; next a circle of deeper 
177 



LITTLE GARDENS 

red, as in roses, grading into the lilacs and pur- 
ples of beardtongue, rock-cress, mourning-bride, 
closed gentian and so to the blue of pansy, 
fringed gentian, columbine, centaurea and ager- 
atum — a rainbow that would be no longer 
a bow, but the completed circle. This is 
merely a fanciful arrangement, because these 
plants are not simultaneously in bloom, nor 
are they named with any regard for grada- 
tion in size, for where a circular bed is 
occupied by several varieties, the tallest must 
be in the center, the next tallest in a band 
or ring about it, and so, in successive diminu- 
tions till the low-growing ageratum, verbena, 
heliotrope, mignonette, candytuft, alyssum, al- 
ternanthera or portulaca forms the outer edge. 
In placing the tallest plants in the center we not 
only satisfy the desire for a formal yet simple 
arrangement, placing the conspicuous plants 
where they shall overtop the others while allow- 
ing them to be seen, but we minimize the shade 
they will cast, so as to give to each occupant of 
the bed an equal chance for prosperity with the 
stoutest. The nasturtium is useful as a bedding 
plant, also for borders, and as a vine; and If 
178 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

there are old stumps about the grounds that are 
too stout for puUing, they can be hollowed for 
eight or ten Inches, and seeds or young nas- 
turtiums can be placed there, in an ordinary soil. 
While they seem to like the drainage in a situa- 
tion like this, and in porch- and window-boxes 
and hanging baskets, too, they are light feeders 
and prefer a sandy soil to one that is heavy and 
richly manured. This makes them easy to grow, 
and it may be the reason why they are not grown 
oftener, for we take most pride, if not most com- 
fort, in what has cost labor and anxiety. 

The geranium requires no introduction. 
Everybody knows it, even in the towns. It is 
common to both continents and is cheap, clean, 
vigorous and useful. It is long active, and you 
will force it to keep in blossom longer than it 
intended if you will pinch off the flower-stalks 
after they have begun to wither. This manner 
of producing bloom applies to numerous other 
plants as well. For the same reason that people 
buy yellow journals and see crimson dramas, 
they buy scarlet geraniums, forgetful that the 
plant has other hues, the pink, for example, and 
the full, clear red and white. Venders in the 
179 



LITTLE GARDENS 

town streets offer geraniums at five to ten cents 
a pot in the spring, so that it is hardly necessary 
to cultivate them through the winter in window- 
boxes and pots, though they are easily raised 
from cuttings and will grow in almost any kind 
of soil. One really excellent use for them is to 
fill ornamental receptacles, in parks, where asser- 
tive accents are desired. You may remember the 
half dozen big bronze urns on top of the 
orangery terrace, in Versailles, flaunting their 
blossoms above their lips, while the elaborate 
garden below is also lustrous with red clusters. 
Again, you may have wandered into some of 
those quaint inn-yards in France and England, 
where the ground is wholly hidden under cobbles 
or flags, and noted the relief to their desert stoni- 
ness which is gained from a single pot of gera- 
niums at the door, or a ring of such pots about 
the well-curb, or a group of them in the corner 
where the hostler can spray them when he washes 
the wagons. Sometimes they are arranged in 
rows on low, broad walls, and in rural Nor- 
mandy they prettily edge the porches of inns and 
cottages. But the scarlet geranium is a plebe- 
ian, and it brags of its loudness and vitality the 
i8o 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

more when it is in refined and quiet company. 
There is but one way to treat it, in such a case : 
pot it and send it to the flower mission. It will 
be appreciated. 

Grow fleur-de-lis, or iris. It is one of the 
early and affecting things of the year, with a 
sad, watery loveliness of texture, a faint fra- 
grance such as we might expect from tears, if 
those liquids were not salt or bitter, and a re- 
serve that is near to dignity. Tender as it seems, 
fragile as a form in tinted ice, it is yet hardy in 
our north temperate zone, and increases little by 
little every year until, in place of eight or ten 
stalks you have several square feet of fresh 
blades, and spike on spike of white, yellow, pale- 
blue, lilac and rich purple flowers. The roots 
will be so matted that weeds can not intrude, 
but these roots should be separated from time to 
time, in order to gain room for healthy contin- 
uance and increase. The iris will grow on dry 
ground, in partial shade, or in ground that is 
almost marshy in summer and in the sun, but 
it prefers not to be wet in winter. I wish I could 
speak from experience as to the growing of the 
Japanese iris, or iris Kaempferi, but mine 
i8i 



LITTLE GARDENS 

bloomed only once. It has large, handsome 
flowers, when they grow, but I found the old- 
fashioned kind the more reliable. They tell me 
that I should not have given a place to it in the 
usual garden-bed, but made a deep trench for it, 
filled it with old manure and rich loam, and 
watered it, no end. It is one of the disadvan- 
tages of rare strains that they require special 
treatment, such as you do not bestow on the 
contents of the old home garden, for most of 
the flowers I have named thus far ask little that 
is not given to their neighbors. The iris leaves 
can be cut off in the late fall, and after the frosts 
we will partly dismantle the garden, if only for 
appearance' sake, tearing up the annuals and the 
frozen plants, and housing such as will live 
through the winter in a sheltered situation, like 
the parlor. 

Beside the iris there is another old friend 
that would be sadly missed if it were not in view 
from our windows: to wit, the pansy. This 
charming little blossom, with its quaint, inno- 
cent face painted on the petals, and its refined, 
elusive fragrance, is a development from the 
violet. The latter is not largely grown by us, 
1C2 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

because it shrinks from sight among its own 
leaves. The violet thrives best in the green- 
house, and those amazing violets of California, 
hawked through the land some years ago, guar- 
anteed to rival the giant pansy in size and ex- 
ceed it in perfume, paid smaller dividends to 
the confiding than some of the oil-wells in the 
same State that were advertised with increasing 
strenuosity the farther the promoter escaped 
from the base of operations. The pansy should 
be massed, its various colors by themselves, and 
it ranges through white, pale blue, lavender, 
yellow, orange and purple, its lowest note being 
a rich and velvety shade of the latter that casual 
observers speak of as black, albeit there is no 
black in flowers. It may be a fancy of mine, 
but it has seemed to me that the deeper the color 
in pansies, the deeper the odor. While it does 
not object to partial shade, an afternoon eclipse 
of the sun by a tree or building, it also stands 
the light, and if the flowers are picked often and 
straggling stems cut back, it will utter flowers 
the whole summer long. It often sows itself, 
and I know a bed of it that weathers tempera- 
tures of 30° below zero, but it is believed to do 
13 183 



LITTLE GARDENS 

best if kept in a cold frame from early frost to 
early spring, then set out in a sandy place that 
has been well enriched rather than in a heavy 
soil. 

Turning now to a different species — for we 
are considering customs and availabilities, rather 
than botanical relations — the peony presents it- 
self, a healthy, rustic companion that suggests a 
country bride, a bashful, good-natured wench, 
prone to blushes and embonpoint. In form like 
the rose, suggesting it, too, in its short life, its 
prompt appearance, its thrift, its opulence, make 
it a glad arrival in every zone it decorates. 
Country gardens without "pineys " would be 
like old homesteads without wells, shade-trees 
and lilacs. There are white, pink and red 
peonies, and each shade is finer than the other, 
for all of them arrive when the world is other- 
wise lean of show, and the flowers are shy and 
small. The peony is a foretoken of the treas- 
ures soon to be squandered over the earth. It 
grows in almost any soil, but deserves to have 
its choice considered, and it prefers a light, but 
rich earth, fertilized once a year, and watered 
through the summer. In planting it is well to 
184 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

throw some old manure into the pit, and from 
that time forth it will care for itself. Its natural 
term of life is over twenty years. As the peony 
ends its blooming early, it is willing to share its 
bed with any plant of a later season and different 
form. We are to prefer harmony in forms as 
well as in colors, yet we are to avoid monotony, 
hence it is pleasant to find the bushy masses and 
decorative leaves of the peony in company and 
contrast with the green fountains of lilaceous 
plants, or with flowers of an upright or spiky 
habit, like foxglove, larkspur, nicotiana, the tall 
phlox, scabiosa or salpiglossis. 

The prejudice that certain good people have 
against the petunia arises partly from its abun- 
dance; for if sunsets happened every hour, there 
are thousands who would not look at them any 
more than they do at present, and partly from 
the injury it suffers in being thrown into contact 
with vivid leaves and blossoms, that make its 
tender, purple tones weak, cold, even ugly. 
Petunias deserve a place to themselves, and I 
have seen beds of them, forty or fifty feet in 
their greater dimension, on a Long Island farm, 
that were like drifts of snow dashed with a 
185 



LITTLE GARDENS 

purple light of morning. While sensitive and 
costly plants may produce nothing but leaves, 
and few of them, the petunia is a sure bloomer 
in all kinds of soils, and it keeps at it all summer 
long. Its flowers wear white, pink-purple, blue- 
purple, a sober red and magenta, hence they are 
no partners for cannas, salvias, and especially 
for the geranium, coreopsis and ruddy marigold. 
Petunias are both double and single, but it is a 
defect in the former that their heads seem 
heavier than they can support, and they are as 
easily broken as dahlias are by rain, wind 
and gamboling pets, to say nothing of Mary 
Ann, whose destructive energies are greater than 
all the others. The single flowers are the hand- 
somest, in so far as we are concerned with form, 
for the color range is the same in both. Either a 
light, dry soil or a rich and moist one serves for 
the raising of petunias. They will live in almost 
anything except a swamp or an alkali desert. 
Though they can be started in pots or boxes in- 
doors, or in cold frames, I have never been dis- 
appointed in them when I have sown the seed 
out of doors in early spring. 

Something of the prejudice that is roused 
i86 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

against the petunia, because of its color, is stirred 
against the poppy, for the same, and better rea- 
son, for the poppy, albeit a magnificent work of 
nature, splendid as the light that falls through 
cathedral windows, perpetrates an unattractive 
and opiate smell, likewise a gross inharmony, as 
you are likely to find if you raise it from mixed 
seed, for you will discover meek lavenders, sad 
purples and grave maroons side by side with 
roistering scarlets and gory reds, as if monks and 
bacchantes had been thrown into an enforced 
society. The poppy is tender and does not bear 
transplanting, therefore, if these chromatic riots 
annoy you, there is nothing for it but to look the 
other way, or else to boldly behead the offender 
— a thing you hate to do, for their sin is in their 
society, and not in themselves. Happily, in the 
case of discords, unhappily at other times, the 
poppy lasts but a little. Often it shakes its petals 
down in twenty-four hours after they have 
opened, leaving the seed-knob with Its lethal con- 
tent — its opium — swaying on a long, spent stem. 
The fleeting character of the poppy endears It to 
us the more, for we can not see the rain of its 
silken petals without a pang, and it is not color 
187 



LITTLE GARDENS 

alone that draws us to It, but its variety and grace 
of form. It is simple as we find It In the fields, 
a little red cup with rounded edges; and we 
hardly know for Its relative that mass of white 
or pink or purple plume, lifted walst-high above 
the earth, and so full of life and light that we 
can not associate with It any property of sleep. 
Nor do we at once recognize as a member of 
the family the escholzia, a common variety in 
California, with delicate, finely divided leaves 
and low-growing flowers of yellow, singularly 
creamy, pure and tender. The escholzia will 
grow from seed planted in the fall, If It is well 
mulched, but the showy varieties come from 
seed committed to the earth at the end of win- 
ter. Such oddities as the horned poppy and the 
thistle-like poppy of Mexico do not please us in 
like measure with the splendid heads of the snow- 
drift, the cardinal and the fairy blush. 

Sweet peas ought to be among our earliest 
considerings, both for their own sake and for 
their help in covering the fences. They must 
have strong cord, or wire, or strips of wire net to 
climb upon. The custom is to buy mixed seed 
and let them come up anyhow : white, pink, red, 
i88 




A WINDOW BOX AND AMPELOFSIS. 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

purple, bronze, blue, faint yellow and mottled, 
all in a jumble; but it is easy to sow each color 
by itself, and you will admit the gain in this 
method, if, the next time they are in flower, you 
gather bouquets of them according to color: a 
blue to-day, a purple to-morrow, and so on. 
Let me add that by keeping the flowers picked 
you keep the vines well filled with flowers to pick. 
There is a paradox, if you like, but it is a fact. 
The seed may be sown in October at a depth of 
fully four inches, and to insure later flowering 
and take the place of any vines that may be frost- 
killed, there can be a second sowing in April. 
The plants are apt to come up thickly and will 
stand thinning. Some florists not only tear out 
a number of their vines, to give room for the 
greater expansion of those which remain, but in 
the late summer they cut all of them to a lowness 
of two feet, feed them with manure water, and 
start them in life all over again; but mine have 
always been such thrifty creatures that they have 
bloomed till frost, and after, needing no other 
attention than an occasional pruning. There is 
a pretty dwarf variety that calls for no wires or 
strings, for it is of bushy habit, and it therefore 
189 



LITTLE GARDENS 

endures closer planting and less pinching back. 
I confess to a dislike of pruning — amputation of 
the limbs of unresisting subjects; the thwarting 
of nature's intent; yet the garden is unquestion- 
ably the better for it. A florist will advise us not 
only to tear up and cut down sweet peas and 
poppies when they come up thickly, but will 
have us do the like for border plants, which we 
sow for thickness : candytuft, sweet alyssum, 
mignonette, portulaca, clarkia, larkspur and 
canary-bird vine. 

Before the sweet peas have ceased from 
blooming we have the asters, with their heads of 
red, pink, crimson, white, pale-purple and dark- 
purple bloom. Their buds are due to open by 
the first of September, yet I remember that they 
are forced into flower at earlier dates — a circum- 
stance brought to mind by the delighted remark 
of a woman at the Chicago fair, whom I heard 
calling to her companion, in one of the gardens, 
" O Samanthy ! Look at the chrysanthemiums 
and Chaney oysters!" — the same signifying 
chrysanthemums and China asters. The asters 
carry themselves with reserve and primness, 
greatly different from the artistic slovenliness of 

IQO 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

the poppies, though less severe than the erect- 
ness of the zinnias and marigolds, and they re- 
joice in colors that are simply exquisite. Some 
of the rose-tinted asters have the glow of rubies. 
These are held to be tender, and are generally 
'started in cold frames, yet they grow on bleak 
northern farms after spring sowing in open 
ground. 

Chrysanthemums close the season. They 
resemble the asters in leaf, habit and mode of 
growth, but they have a wonderful diversity in 
form and a greater range of color. Fashion has 
neglected this plant of late, for fashion has its 
whims not merely in the matter of gowns and 
the drama, but in such affairs as mountains and 
bouquets. It has given over the chrysanthemum 
shows, that used to be regarded as society events 
no less than events of esthetic and scientific inter- 
est; hence, because it is less worth their material 
while, the florists exhibit fewer of the blooms in 
their windows. But no matter. We, who ad- 
mire, may continue to cultivate it. Just as likely 
as not, we have fallen out of the habit of reading 
the society news, and have therefore failed to 
observe the significant announcement that Mrs. 
191 



LITTLE GARDENS 

Chuckleson-Jermynsides no longer drives in the 
park with a pug and chrysanthemums, but with 
a terrier and a bouquet of castor leaves and scar- 
let beans. And there are nurserymen in the land 
who go right along raising chrysanthemums as 
if nothing had happened to make them believe 
they shouldn't. They create new strains every 
year, and within the last quarter century they 
have sent specimens to the exhibitions that would 
have been an astonishment to our parents — big, 
fuzzy heads like those of football players, 
shapely globes of white, red, pink, magenta, yel- 
low, orange, disks of crimson dashed with gold, 
open, sunny faces, knobs of close-set petals, nests 
of petals frazzled like those of the poppy, sober, 
formal, well-proportioned blossoms — in fact, 
there is no end to the variety. The big examples, 
that we see in the greenhouses of the dealers and 
showmen, are the results of unnatural stimula- 
tion and forcing; they have been treated to 
strong manures, and enlarged by disbudding; 
that is, the buds of the plant are nipped back to 
a single one at the end of each stalk, so that the 
strength formerly imparted to fifty blossoms is 
centered in half a dozen. Put your giant into 
192 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

the ground as soon as the petals have fallen, that 
is, if it is hardy, and next autumn, lo, a miracle ! 
For instead of six or eight flowers something 
less in size than cabbages, here come thirty or 
forty of them, but all smaller than last year's 
buds; each a copy in miniature of the stately 
blooms of a twelvemonth ago. This increase In 
number and shrinkage in size and value but de- 
note the reversion of the plant to its original 
type, the assertion of nature, and its reclamation 
of this, its offspring. In urging the chrysanthe- 
mum to feats and freaks of growth and color, 
shape and size, we sap its strength, and our in- 
door coddling makes it subject to colds and other 
diseases. Old-fashioned varieties are best to 
live out, for civilization weakens the subject. 
Hothouses are snares for both the vegetable and 
human victim: they so easily lead both into 
habits of luxury. Chrysanthemums can be 
started early in a hotbed, or later in the place 
where they are to grow. Those left out for the 
winter are to be cut down and thickly mulched. 
The showiest varieties are tender, and will re- 
quire to be taken Indoors and treated like other 
members of the family — a service which they re- 

193 



LITTLE GARDENS 

quite by not putting out a single flower till 
fall. 

With the flowers named in this list we can 
go a-garden-keeping. Not that the list is com- 
plete. One would require to take something like 
700 pages out of Gray's Botany to make it so. 
Brief mention must still be made of the sun- 
flower, that flaunts its banner of black and gold 
above the other color-bearers, and holds its sta- 
tion in any dry and sandy place; of the delightful 
marigold — I like even the bitter smell of it — 
unfolding its gold-yellow, lemon-yellow, orange 
and brown-red in almost rash luxuriance : one of 
the easiest and surest of plants, and to be sown 
at the end of April in ordinary soil; the calen- 
dula, or pot marigold, with a more limited range 
of color but more refined quality — a tremendous 
lot of it you may count upon, in all varieties; the 
coreopsis, with its fringed petals of red and yel- 
low, and its lank and infirm carriage when it is 
not artificially supported; the calceolaria, with 
its queer floral pouches dappled with red and 
yellow — a greenhouse product, not to be set into 
the yard till summer; the heady and luxuriant 
sedums, that like sand, rocks and coolness; and 
194 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

phlox, both Drummondii (the annual), low- 
growing, strangely starred and streaked, and the 
stout, tranquil perennial of our grandmothers' 
gardens, with Its panicles of white, pink and red 
In solid colors. We ought to make a good deal 
of the begonia. If you have ever seen the beds 
of the tuberous species In the Harvard botanical 
garden, in Cambridge, you have seen a show as 
fine In its way as the shows of the chrysanthe- 
mums In town. Yet the flowers are not aggres- 
sively beautiful, and the plant is to be regarded 
rather for Its foliage. In the greenhouse the 
begonia will attain a height of more than six feet, 
and it bears leaves of beautiful markings. 

It is a pity that the primrose does not grow 
with us as it does In England. The Chinese 
primrose, that we raise in pots, is one of the first 
tokens of spring that florists offer, and It will 
keep In bloom for several weeks, they tell me, 
yet It Is not for me to see It in flower after the 
first ten days in the window. It puts out false 
buds in bunches that never open, but wither 
down. Still, its fuzzy leaves are pleasant to see, 
and those transplanted early from the green- 
house will bloom generously. The red and yel- 
195 



LITTLE GARDENS 

low primrose and primula polyanthus, like the 
English cowslip, are hardy with us. The fuch- 
sias, too : every one lils^es them, with their deli- 
cate, drooping bells of red and white, but it takes 
a year to raise them from seed, and they are sel- 
dom kept after their first flowering, though the 
fuchsia variegata is commended as a hardy kind 
that will live out of doors and take care of itself. 
The cockscomb, or celosia, is such a magnificent 
piece of color that it ought to be in every garden. 
Both the red and orange varieties are available 
in borders, though their hues are so strong that 
they are apt to dull the tints of milder colored 
flowers in the vicinity. It is a delicate plant, for 
all the bristling of its crest, and must be guarded 
against frost and dryness. There is much charm 
in our common balsam despite the habit of its 
flowers in clinging close against the stalks, and 
so showing less of themselves than if they jutted 
boldly into view, like zinnias. It is to be sown 
so soon as mild weather is assured. Not only is 
the color of the balsam pure and delightful, but 
the texture of its petals is singularly pearly, and 
the white is as tender as the white of a summer 
cloud. 

196 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

One of the flowers that ahvays appeals to me 
by its modesty and grace is the bleeding-heart, 
with its festoons of pink, and its spring-like 
leaves. If they did not call its sister by so appal- 
ling a name as Dutchman's-breeches, quite prob- 
ably we should elect that for the garden too, 
although it pleases one most when he iinds it in 
the woods and among the ledges in May. The 
bleeding-heart is one of the long-lived plants, 
and Is to be set into good soil so soon as the frost 
Is out of the ground. Stronger reds than the 
bleeding-heart's we shall find in the canna, with 
its spikes of bloom and its huge leaves of refresh- 
ing green, and this plant is of especial use as a 
center for round beds, taking care not to put into 
the circles about it any flowers of a hue to be 
killed by its more assertive colors. The seed of 
the canna is so hard that it is proper to file a little 
hole in it and soak it in tepid water for a day be- 
fore planting. With canna in the center or in the 
back row we can employ the gladiolus as a neigh- 
bor for the inmost circle or the row next to the 
back, only there are pinks and magentas in the 
gladiolus that do not go well with the shriller 
reds of the canna. If standing at a distance from 
197 



LITTLE GARDENS 

tail plants with straight leaves, the gladiolus is 
in good company if it is with rounder, shrubbier 
growths. The carnation and dianthus are pop- 
ular in towns, but they are usually greenhouse 
products. In the garden they grow well enough 
in hot summers, but are apt to come up spindling, 
and they make less of a show, by far, than many 
plants of less estimation. Candytuft and sweet 
alyssum, with their tiny white flowers, are chiefly 
of use in borders, and are apt to grow scrawny 
and long. The alyssum appears to be the chosen 
habitat of a slithy grub that may have something 
to do with the patchy appearance of this plant. 
If you turn up the clusters you are pretty sure to 
find him in considerable numbers on the stems or 
on the earth where he has dropped. Better, to 
my mind, as a border plant, or as a filler for 
vacant spaces, is the portulaca, a lovable little 
member of the garden community, though re- 
lated to purslain, which is one of the commonest 
of garden pests. In the first sowing of portu- 
laca use seed rather liberally, and in places 
where the sun shines. After that it will sow it- 
self, and you may look for it every spring. It 
exhibits white, pink, red, crimson and scarlet, 
198 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

the latter discordant with the others, but right 
enough for neighboring the geranium, the salvia 
and some of the cannas. More delicate, more 
charming than the strong-hued blossoms, is the 
salpiglossis, with its trumpets of buff and brown- 
pink, and the scabiosa, or mourning-bride, which 
puts up heads suggestive of a chrysanthemum, 
or of an impossible cross between that and the 
bachelor's button. It occurs in white, yellow, 
purple and a so-called black, which is really a 
deep purple-crimson. In shape a kinship will be 
found to this flower in the gaillardia, a hand- 
some and neglected species which likes the sun 
and a sandy soil. The bachelor's button, adopted 
by the German Emperor as his personal flower, 
and of soft blue, white, pink and purple, is agree- 
able In borders and masses. 

The heliotrope and mignonette are entitled 
to a place in the garden because of the fragrance 
they give to It, but they make no such show as 
do the verbena, the stock, the sweet-william, 
the four-o'clock, the hnum, the palnted-dalsy, or 
even the fuzzy little ageratum, and In consider- 
ing these plants of woolly texture we are not to 
forget the uses of love-lies-bleeding, with its 

^4 199 



LITTLE GARDENS 

drooping tassels of crimson and its cloth-like 
leaves. One fills odd corners with this plant to 
advantage, as its line of grace relieves the angu- 
lar setting of a fence junction and the uprights 
of a house or arbor. There are good words to 
say for Canterbury bells, foxglove, blazing-star, 
clarkia, columbine, and especially for the cosmos, 
with its fern-like foliage and its daisy-like flowers 
of red and pink and white. The cosmos stands 
six feet high, and ought to stand against a wall 
or fence, for it roots so lightly that it may be 
tipped over by a stiff wind. Its flower is delicate 
and refined and looks well in clusters for vases 
on the table. 

Then, there are the plants with ornate leaves, 
the well-known coleus, the dusty-miller, the 
striped grass, the poinsettia, with its flaming 
bracts, the odd little houseleek and especially 
the alternanthera, a close-growing, small-leaved 
plant, that takes on glossy green or the autumnal 
red of oak-leaves. The alternanthera is almost 
the equal of box for borders and figures in the 
elaborate designs used in carpet bedding. I have 
not included any mention of this latter thus far, 
because, while it is more suitable for a small gar- 
200 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

den than for some of the grounds in which it is 
essayed, it is so extremely formal and difficult 
that for the amateur it is best left alone. The 
carpet bed reproduces as closely as possible the 
texture of a rug, and it is in these close-cropped 
and solid masses of vegetation that we find those 
horrors which are supposed to be the joy of Jake 
and Maggie in their walks through the parks : 
pictures, in plants, of eagles, harps, soldiers, 
ships and other devices so exceeding cute that 
you think of the man who invented them as sit- 
ting up with them all night to check the growth 
of a leaf here, a stem there and a flower in the 
other place, lest the sharp edging of a stripe or 
circle or curve be marred. To plan some of 
these foliage mosaics requires a geometrician, a 
gardener, a botanist in one, and the unceasing 
service of a laborer or an enthusiast is exacted to 
keep them in order after they have been planned 
and planted. Flowers growing as nature in- 
tended them to grow, in beds, to be sure, but un- 
restrained and helped, are of necessity more 
beautiful than plants collected into cities of their 
kind without elbow-room or breathing-room, tor- 
tured for a show. 

201 



LITTLE GARDENS 

If our garden has a high fence or wall to 
keep off the winds and reflect the sunshine, there 
are many tropical or semitropical plants that will 
be willing guests of ours through the summer — 
the palms, the crotons, the velvety gloxinias, the 
huge elephant's-ear, the decorative castor-plant, 
the dracenas, the jasmin, and even those strange 
things of the air: the stag-horn fern, the tilland- 
sia, and the orchids. We have swamp and field 
orchids that can be grown about our houses, pro- 
vided they can have the soils and conditions of 
light and shade which they elect in the open, 
and the orchids of the Indies and Amazon can 
be kept through the summer in a warm and shel- 
tered yard. Indeed, these have a stronger hold 
on life than is commonly supposed. The ly caste 
Skinneri and the cattleya triana cheered a winter 
for me by putting forth some beautiful blooms in 
a south window, where they had been hung 
against pieces of cork with a packing of moss 
about the roots; yet I have to confess that while 
they lived for several years, they never flowered 
again. The tropical varieties are not for do- 
mestic cultivation, at least, for more than a single 
season, except to that happy person who has a 
202 



CHOICE OF FLOWERS 

greenhouse. Wherein the orchid is not unlike 
the cactus. The plant children of the desert 
were a fad of mine, for a while. I spent more 
than I had a right to do in rare and odd speci- 
mens, and with one or two exceptions they died 
without flowering. The exceptions died just 
afterward. It was quite an experience to see 
them do it. And when you observe that in Ari- 
zona they live through everything, the heat of a 
rolling-mill, the drought of the desert, the chill 
of a northern winter, the calm of a cellar, the 
gale of an open sea, to say nothing of the prey- 
ings and nibblings of animals and insects, it is 
hard to understand why they should behave so 
ungratefully on our shelves and in our houses, 
but I suspect it is that they are treated too well, 
and have too much food and too much water. 
I found that cacti did the best in a rockery — to 
dignify a little stone heap by that name — for 
perched in niches on this monument, such mois- 
ture as they received ran quickly off, leaving 
them as dry as ever when the sun came out, and 
that is what they insist upon. They live a stren- 
uous life, and when they have all that you sup- 
pose they have been asking, they sicken of a 
203 



LITTLE GARDENS 

surfeit and expire. Hot sunshine and little rain 
are their chief requirements, so the difficulty of 
keeping them contented in a cool and rainy land 
is obvious. Their bizarre forms, their hoary 
heads, bristling pincushions, snaky arms, tall 
candelabra, their melon shapes and their flat, 
leathery lobes are interesting, certainly, and ex- 
perts persuade them to flower in surprising ways, 
but in the north country I would rather have a 
lily than a hundred cacti. Out on the plains in 
June it is a different matter. The bursting forth 
of rose and lemon-yellow cactus flowers in early 
summer is one of the shows of the world. Here 
are we in a yard and can not see it. 



204 



VII 

THE WILD GARDEN 

I HAVE found much Interest and satisfaction 
in the growing of wild flowers and wild animals 
in confined spaces, especially in stocking a yard 
that till then was bare of material. It was hard 
on some of the captives — much as if I had 
brought wolves and albatrosses out of the wild, 
and restrained them to a yard in town. Others, 
however, were thankful, and proved it by flour- 
ishing as they had not flourished in the meadows 
and by the roadside. In my strolls to the coun- 
try I would carry a botany box and fetch it back 
filled with small plants, roots and cuttings, some 
of which died in disgust before the week was out. 
I also brought toads. In the first warm weather 
the new-born hoppers are out in the waste places, 
and I would gather up half a dozen and put them 
into the yard, to get ripe. In time, I thought, 
there would be toads enough in town to be of 
human service, but most of them have disap- 
205 



LITTLE GARDENS 

peared, somewhere, somehow, and a new drove 
— herd — swarm — flock — what is the term? — is 
required to keep the garden free from insects. 
With their quick and slimy tongues they catch 
flies, beetles, grubs and other preying creatures; 
and then, too, they are company. It is amusing 
to see them swell, as if with indignation, when 
you pick them up and stroke their backs, and 
note the blinking of their beady eyes. They have 
a soft and chirr-r-ring call that may be heard on 
a still, warm evening as you loiter among your 
lilies and roses, so faint and tender that it gibes 
with the perfume and the coming of the stars. 

There is another garden friend, too, that it 
is worth while to cultivate, at least, to avoid de- 
stroying: the ladybird, or ladybug. This tiny 
beetle with red wing cases spotted with black, 
the unthinking will crush, as they like to crush 
anything from caterpillars to elephants; yet it 
thrives on aphides, the slow-moving, slow-witted 
plant-lice that colonize on stems and leaves and 
suck the vegetable juices, giving them to the 
ants, their milkers, in tiny globules of fluid. And 
if you have a pool, and have failed to stock it 
with gold and silver fish or " pumpkin-seeds " — 
206 



THE WILD GARDEN 

a gross neglect — the dragon-flies will consume a 
few thousands of the mosquitoes that are in such 
case bound to breed in it. And you are never to 
kill a dragon-fly, or " devil's darning-needle," 
even If you do believe that it stings and that it 
will sew up your ears. In the south it would be 
proper to add to the menage a lizard or two — 
harmless, pretty creatures, these, and I know 
people who keep snakes about their premises, 
because they feed on mice and possibly eat an 
insect now and again. Many birds have visited 
my reservation in town, mostly house-sparrows, 
that keep up an astonishing chatter even on their 
courtesy visits; but we have had robins, hum- 
ming-birds, sea-gulls, night-hawks, and starlings 
are habiting some trees less than a quarter of a 
mile away. These starlings, which I hope are 
going to adopt us, are quiet, shy, with soft and 
flute-like speech, and prefer the security of high, 
remote places. They are with us from August 
to April, and make music at all seasons. A col- 
ony has occupied the Brooklyn water-tower for 
the past few years; there is a family in the trees 
behind the Alexander Hamilton grange, in New 
York, and in a certain prison that I know — re- 
207 



LITTLE GARDENS 

marks are not in order — the starlings nest and 
whistle in the vines and under the cornices. Add 
to the garden population, if you can, butterflies, 
moths and bees, and be kind to your little plow- 
man, the earthworm, for without his burrowing 
and loosening of the soil it would pack like clay, 
and you would find it hard to grow so much as 
weeds. The amount of earth lifted in a single 
yard by these unseen helpers is, quite likely, a 
ton in a summer, and may be much more. 

In transplanting wild flowers from their 
haunts to the home grounds, note the locality in 
which you find them, for you must afford to them 
a congenial habitat. Several kinds of ferns, as 
well as the glossy pipsissewa and wintergreen, 
will desire a woody shade, saxifrage will seek for 
niches in rocks, and butter-and-eggs requires the 
sun; the pitcher-plant prefers the bog, the camo- 
mile a sandy roadside; the ghost-flower, or 
corpse-plant, or Indian-pipe, as it is variously 
called, wants footing in old leaves, moss and 
roots, while the arrowhead must have water. It 
is impossible to collect every sort of wild flower 
into the city garden, because it is impossible in 
such a space to afford all the conditions necessary 
208 



THE WILD GARDEN 

to a wide variety of growth. If you are deter- 
mined to have certain exotics from the next town- 
ship, you can provide for them, but in making 
them at home you destroy the home of your 
faithful and domestic flowers. For instance, I 
kept a skunk-cabbage, for the fun of the thing, 
and although it refused my blandishments after 
a little, it went far to convince me that I could 
have kept it going if I had watered and shaded 
it more thoughtfully. I think the neighbors re- 
garded this as unholy, yet I never scattered its 
leaves over their premises. If, however, I had 
raised skunk-cabbages, the moistening of the 
soil would have made the place unfit for my 
sweet peas, honeysuckles, petunias and zinnias. 

Dandelion, buttercup, goldenrod, mustard, 
butter-and-eggs, dog's-tooth violet, hawkweed, 
rattlesnake weed, cinquefoil, evening primrose, 
mullein, moth-mullein, St. Johnswort, star-grass, 
meadow-lily, butterfly-weed and oxalis I have 
raised in a city yard. The goldenrods were the 
pride of the place, standing so high as to con- 
ceal the moderately tall fence against which I 
planted them, and flaunting heads of bloom as 
large as a blacksmith's fist. The common white- 
209 



LITTLE GARDENS 

weed, which we call the daisy, I likewise culti- 
vated with success, and an unexpected triumph 
was in the blooming of a pink lady's-sllpper, or 
moccasin-flower, that I had dug on the edge of 
a ditch in the suburbs and replanted in poor soil, 
but watered generously. Of two buttercups, one 
flowered numerously, carrying hundreds of blos- 
soms, while the other had fewer flowers and 
larger, because I had disbudded it, throwing its 
strength into the flowers that remained, I have 
a notion that the common wayside aster would 
act in the same way and produce blossoms nearly 
as large as the cultivated variety, if the buds were 
all pinched off, except half a dozen. 

The yarrow is slowly getting its deserts by 
acceptance in gardens. It has an exquisite soft- 
ness and fineness of leaf, which yields a pleasant 
nutty odor when crushed in the fingers, and it 
would be greatly esteemed were it not that it 
grows wild by dusty highways. One can not 
say so much for its flowers, for they are dull, 
grayish and inconspicuous, although the pink 
variety is as yet sufficient of a rarity to entitle it 
to garden use. The tansy, also, is a fresh and 
wholesome looking plant, with bunches of yellow 

2IO 



THE WILD GARDEN 

flowers that make a good appearance in the field, 
and why not in the garden? Suggesting the 
yarrow in its foHage and the daisy in its flower, 
is the camomile, another familiar of the country, 
but less worth while as a cultivated plant, be- 
cause of its low growth and raggedness. 

There is practically no end to the resources 
of the wild garden. -The whole flora of a coun- 
ty, excepting the swamp flowers, can be repre- 
sented in an estate that is large enough and that 
has some variety of surface — rocks, mold, sand 
and shade. We can begin our season in that 
garden early, with the violet, liverwort, star- 
flower, blood-root, rue-anemone, May-apple, the 
trilliums, Solomon's-seal, spice-bush, the rhodora, 
the wild pink, the showy orchis, the polygala and 
wild geranium, and carry color and fragrance 
through the months till the snows begin to 
sprinkle over the last gentians, Joe-Pye-weeds, 
everlastings, goldenrods and asters. 

The place for a wild garden is at a remove 
from the house, if the space available for formal 
gardening is small. It is better to separate the 
cultivated from the wild, not that the former 
learn any bad habits from the other, but that 

211 



LITTLE GARDENS 

the savage plants are heedlessly insistent in the 
matter of scattering their seed, and escapes from 
the wild garden into the cultivated are much 
more certain than escapes of the civilized from 
the places set aside for lilies and roses. So soon 
as a Vvild flower has established itself where it is 
not wanted, it becomes a weed, and is liable to 
the treatment accorded to interlopers. But while 
it is with us from choice, let us be good to it, 
plow the ground in which it is to stand, water it 
in dry seasons, even weed it when ugly and un- 
welcome growths threaten to overrun it or crowd 
the daintier residents. A surfacing of manure 
in the spring and of mulch in the fall will be as 
well appreciated by the wild flower as the tame 
one, and it will prove its appreciation by in- 
creased growth and livelier color. The wild 
flowers can be collected into beds and treated in 
the same manner as the geraniums and petunias, 
or the seed can be sown broadcast over prepared 
ground. And it is now possible to obtain the 
seed of wild flowers from mercantile growers, 
whose offer of it must surely be based upon an 
increased appreciation of natural beauty. 



212 



VIII 

SHRUBS 

All large forms are to be used with caution 
in small grounds. We must give our yard to what 
we deem the best, and in the country, where we 
are surrounded by woods, we will not try to con- 
struct a forest at our doors. If we can deceive 
ourselves into thinking that the yard is a cosmos, 
well and good; but the effect will be rather des- 
perate if we try to make it one. If a brook runs 
through it, flowing between steep banks, bowered 
with alder, elder, willow, woodbine and clematis, 
setting the birds a-singing with its gurgle, and 
opening glades that invite us from the world to 
listen for that message of more than mortal con- 
sequence that winds and waters always seem 
about to speak, yet that ever eludes our under- 
standing, we are privileged, indeed. Only, as 
there may be a mile of delightful wilderness be- 
yond our confines, and no lilies, dahlias or chi-ys- 
anthemums in all that distance, is it not better 
213 



LITTLE GARDENS 

to make our garden In the spot we have cleared, 
than to restore our clearing to the wilderness? 

The use of shrubs, however, does not commit 
us to any such attempt. Many of them are avail- 
able and admirable for yards and other small 
spaces. They are needed, like the vines, to 
cover unsightly fences, to give variety, interest, 
dignity and beauty to the prospect. In a large 
garden they can be massed into thickets, or made 
to serve as backgrounds for beds, and it is an 
effective use of them to have dense plantations 
of flowers in careless windings before these thick- 
ets, the flowers rising directly from the lawn 
without the usual path before them, thus: 




SHRUBS 

By following a contour rudely indicated by 
the shrubs themselves, formality is reduced to 
a minimum, though we can add the two little 
beds and the half-circular space at the beginning 
and end of the path for the cultivation of smaller, 
more delicate plants than we would entrust to a 
summer-long tussle with the grass, and with the 
shade cast by the thicker vegetation. Beside the 
ferns there are many flowers which can be relied 
upon to bloom In shade. 

It is claimed that shrubs and trees are now 
safely transplanted at any time of the year, but 
the fall is the best season for the work, as in 
spring the sudden interruption of the sap flow, 
made in lifting them, retards their growth, If It 
does not imperil their lives. A tree unsuccess- 
fully replanted is never strong and satisfying, 
and generally dies young. The shift should be 
made as quickly as possible, and the ball of earth 
be kept about the root until the bush is ready for 
its new place. The hole must be large enough 
to receive the roots outspread, and if It Is found 
that any of them have been Injured in transit. 
It is advised that they be cut off cleanly, with 
a sharp knife, above the break. When set into 
13 215 



LITTLE GARDENS 

Its new lodgment, earth is to be sifted over the 
roots, then garden mold shoveled on and well 
tamped down, by boot-heels, If other and less 
usual Implements are not convenient. It Is sel- 
dom that heavy manuring Is required, because 
the best shrubs for garden use thrive on soil of 
coarser texture than Is needed by herbaceous 
plants, and root more stoutly for their own liv- 
ings in a dry season. If flowers are planted near, 
they should still be at such a distance as to avoid 
entanglement with the bushes, for In such case 
they would steal one another's substance and the 
growth of each would be hindered. Severe and 
yearly pruning is believed to injure the flowering 
property of shrubs, and I have never done more 
in that direction than to cut out old or gnarly 
branches. The new growths will have to be 
fought steadily, unless It is desired to extend the 
range of the plant. Black currant and lilac, es- 
pecially, are determined to possess the premises, 
the former sending Its runners under ground to 
arise at unexpected places six feet away. It is 
fiercely and Insistently reproductive. 

The lilac does not put out these slvlrmlshers, 
but advances in solid line of battle, sending up 
216 



SHRUBS 

from the close neighborhood of the central trunk 
a multitude of lesser stalks, and massing so 
densely as almost to exclude the light from the 
earth beneath it. If these suckers are not 
promptly trimmed off, or hoed out of the earth, 
the difficulty of removing them is much in- 
creased, for in a few months the wood grows so 
tough as to resist the hoe. These shoots will 
rollick upward into the body of the bush, and so 
it interferes with itself, lessening the growth of 
its flowers and starving such leaves as can not 
gain the light. If early separated from the 
bush and set out in new ground, the suckers will 
become healthy bushes of themselves, in a few 
seasons. The lilac is one of the elements in the 
rural picture that a country boy will not dismiss 
from his memory. He recalls the white and the 
pink-purple clusters that flourished in scores, 
sometimes in hundreds, over the bush that stood 
at the door, and that are still blooming in lonely 
spots among the hills where men's eyes rarely 
see them, for the houses they beautified are gone 
and the farms deserted. He recalls their fra- 
grance in moments of reverie that happily come 
to him in the moil of town. He remembers 
217 



LITTLE GARDENS 

the pitcher of new-cut thyrses that adorned the 
table when the minister took tea with the family, 
or when lunch was set out for the matrons and 
spinsters of the sewing-circle. He recalls the 
groups of lilacs in the school-yard, and those that 
cast a shadow at the gate of that sacred place of 
shadows : the village cemetery. And so remem- 
bering, he plants a lilac before his city home, or 
has it in his yard. We see more of lilacs in town 
than of any other shrub, yet we see not half 
enough of them. Over a score of varieties are 
offered by the nurserymen — white, purple-rose, 
red with a faint blue cast, full purple and purple- 
violet. This shrub will stand neglect, but that 
is no reason why it should have it. What is 
worth room on one's premises is worth affection- 
ate care. Like other plants, the lilac asks a drink 
in thirsty weather, it needs occasional pruning, 
and Is none the worse for an annual loosening of 
the soil about its roots. 

Useful in backgrounds is the weigelia, or 
diervilla, a bush of loosely spreading habit, but 
shapely, and bearing trumpets of ruddy purple, 
pink, red and white. This shrub is said to come 
from Japan, where it grows from three to si- 
218 









'■■ 







A PLEASING VISTA. 



SHRUBS 

feet in height, but I am sure that one In my yard 
has attained a height of eight feet — at least, 
that its branches would measure that if they were 
straightened. It is a free bloomer, the flowers 
lasting from the end of May to mid-July. It 
loses a branch now and again, not from disease, 
but apparently from age, and these dead limbs 
will be amputated, of course. It also appreciates 
a little fertilizer, yet it grows easily, and in any 
common soil. 

I doubt if the azalea will stand our winters; 
at least, the cultivated sort, bearing red and 
white flowers, is sensitive, and the wild azalea, 
with its watery buff, yellow and salmon blossoms 
makes so much less of a show, in the north, that 
it has yet to win its place as a garden plant; but 
its congener, the rhododendron, deserves admir- 
ing consideration. This splendid shrub, most 
glorious of all spring vegetation, its thickets 
bombarding the hills with flashes of red, pink, 
purple and white, is a winter ornament, because 
its leaves are always green and glossy, and it 
pushes forth its buds in the fall, so that all 
through the winter it seems as if an hour of sun- 
shine would set it flourishing; but after its season 
219 



LITTLE GARDENS 

has passed and it has begun its summer rest, it is 
apt to grow dull and ragged; hence the planter 
should make the most of it, and group it by 
colors, where possible. These clusters are not 
to be crowded, to be sure, for the plant requires 
room to develop itself to its full height, and if 
it finds a place to its liking it becomes a tree. 
Such clusters are large for the town yard, and 
are better apportioned to country estates, es- 
pecially for covering a hill slope and concealing 
spots of poverty or ugliness at the bottom. The 
laurel, with its waxen cups, is a contemporary of 
the rhododendron, as to bloom, and suggests it 
at a distance. It is sometimes used to fill out 
masses of shrubbery in which the latter bush is 
dominant. As foliage the andromeda is also to 
be viewed with favor, and its white spikes sprin- 
kle it with snow at about the time the bigger 
rhododendron is lavishing its bloom. Special- 
ists tell us that all of these shrubs, azalea, rhodo- 
dendron, laurel and andromeda, which are 
American in origin and come to their best with 
us, succeed in a peaty soil, or one in which old 
leaf-mold, rotted turf and a modicum of stable 
manure have been mixed. In England they re- 
220 



SHRUBS 

fuse to thrive in a limestone district, but I have 
found thickets of healthy laurel, or kalmia, 
among the limestone hills of the Hudson; that 
is, there are lime quarries within a mile, or less, 
of these plantations. 

Of other shrubs mention may be made of the 
barberry, which grows to a height of five feet, 
takes on autumn color, produces yellow and red 
flowers and scarlet berries, and is useful where 
a thin hedge is required; also, the English and 
Spanish brooms; the Japanese quince; the dog- 
wood, which, like the magnolia, is to be consid- 
ered rather as a tree; the snowball; the rose of 
Sharon; in fact, the list might be extended to a 
hundred, but several of these are less available 
for small gardens than the shrubs first men- 
tioned, because of susceptibility to frost, sprawl- 
ing growth, undue size, failure of bloom, or 
finical disposition respecting soils and treatment. 
Any seedsman, nurseryman or practical gardener 
will advise the amateur when problems arise re- 
specting yard area, shade and light, herbaceous 
allies and character of soil. 

The box and privet are especially to be men- 
tioned, however, because of their usefulness in 

221 



LITTLE GARDENS 

hedges and borders. Box is of a small leaf, 
tough stem, compact growth, is at home in all 
soils and can be raised from cuttings, which are 
to be removed at the end of warm weather, say, 
in September, and placed in the shade for root- 
ing. Some new strains have been announced, in 
which the leaves, instead of showing the deep 
green that lasts all winter, are variegated with 
white and yellow. These gold and silver shrubs 
are serviceable when tubs or pots of vegetation 
are required to margin a walk or lawn, or to 
sentinel an arbor or a door, or to encircle a pool. 
The potted box will grow to a height of four 
or five feet, and it looks quite as well as the yew 
or cedar that has attained no greater altitude. 
The same may be said of the privet, which makes 
a neat appearance as a single plant, but serves its 
best function as a hedge. Privet is said to grow 
scrawny in some parts of the country, but in the 
North and East it can be teased into a hedge as 
compact as that of box. The proper treatment 
of it is to cut it ruthlessly in the early spring of 
its second year — cut it to within a foot of the 
ground. This will cause a number of strong new 
shoots to emerge from the central stalks, taking 

222 



SHRUBS 

the place of stalks that have been shorn away, 
and the effect of this thick growth near the root 
is to make the shrub so dense that dogs, cats and 
poultry will not pass through. I frequently walk 
by a city yard that is shut off from the street by 
a row of privet which has been allowed to grow 
a dozen feet high. It is thin below; hence it 
•gives no concealment, but it attains arboreal im- 
portance in its outspreadings. And, apropos, 
the severity of a hedge, when there is a long 
reach of it, can be broken by a few evergreens 
behind it, or a few potted plants on the lawn or 
walk before it, or by both. Spruces and hem- 
locks show well against the solid green of privet, 
and they can be grown in tubs, where they are 
to be manured and watered, like deciduous 
growths. 

If one has large grounds he should not plant 
a hedge where it will obstruct a pleasing view, 
or cut across a generous vista. Indeed, nothing 
should be planted in an open space, if it will have 
the effect of breaking that space into inconse- 
quent and disconnected areas. If we can not 
plant in masses, at least we can plant in rows. 
In the orchard we plant in rows for convenience' 
223 



LITTLE GARDENS 

sake, and If our fruit-trees flank the house, it is 
an easy matter to open the aisles before our 
doors and windows, and so give reach of the eye 
into comforting distances. 

As centers in plant groups or geometrized 
plans, or as bits of form and color in dull spots, 
we may use, beside the shrubs, the conifers, the 
Japanese " blood-leaved " maple, compact and 
colorful, the hazel, the weeping birch, the weep- 
ing ash, and the small varieties of weeping wil- 
low and weeping elm, but the usual city yard is 
too small for a tree that has a lateral spread of 
more than ten feet. We must consider propor- 
tion, especially in the furnishing of a place that 
custom has made disproportionally small for our 
needs. 

And in summer we can set out our palms and 
rubber-plants, which have been adorning the di- 
ning-room or parlor, sinking the pots into the 
beds, to secure them against the wind, keeping 
off the insects and cutting away the dead leaves. 
They will enjoy our tropic summer, but must be 
taken in promptly when cool weather threatens. 
Every one knows the rubber-plant, with its broad 
leaves of poHshed green; and there is no better 
224 



SHRUBS 

palm for domestic cultivation than the kentia 
balmoreana. Palms are all more or less addicted 
to the pesky little scale insect, which must be 
washed off and picked off at least once in a week, 
yet the palms usually enjoy as good health as 
the insects. 



225 



IX 

WATER IN THE GARDEN 

There Is no question as to the charm which 
Is added to a garden by a httle water — an eye 
of blue with brows of rush or tropic grasses if 
you please, though It Is better for a small pool 
to be rimmed plainly with cement or stone and to 
show all of Itself It can. If only a couple of 
yards In diameter there Is an Impression of 
crowding when vegetation Is placed In it; at 
least, anything more than a single plant, and for 
that plant I would choose our common pond- 
lily, white and fragrant, an Ivory star with cen- 
tral rays of gold. If we are able to widen the 
basin, however, w^e can add the water-poppy or 
the water-hyacinth, which flowers In summer In 
our northern climate, and which. In southern 
rivers spreads in such weedy luxuriance that gov- 
ernment has to spend large sums yearly to clear 
the channels for navigation. It has no root in 
226 



WATER IN THE GARDEN 

the ground, but lives on the water, as orchids 
do on air. If our little lake is a dozen feet or 
more across, we can have a tinted variety of 
pond-lily, the pale yellow, or the pink, to live 
with the white. If it is shallow and has turfy 
banks, we may have a growth of bamboo, or 
canebrake, or papyrus, at one side. The latter, 
which in its form is like a miniature palm, is 
doubtless the most tractable of the grasses for a 
small pool, as it does not often exceed four feet 
in our latitude. This is the grass that gave to 
the world the earliest material for the impres- 
sions of pen and ink, and from the word papyrus 
we keep the name of paper, to this day. There 
is something foreign in its aspect and it brings 
into our home ground a vision, howsoever faint, 
of the land of the Pyramids, the sunrise land of 
mystery. 

Other possibilities for the boggy shore or 
shallow water are the pickerel-weed, arrow- 
head, snakehead, marsh-marigold, pitcher-plant, 
showy orchis, and, near by, where their roots 
will be well moistened, the daffodil, iris, cardinal- 
flower and forget-me-not. There is a tendency 
to put too much into the water itself, and quite 
227 



LITTLE GARDENS 

obscure its surface, which has a sky-reflecting 
value and beauty of its own. We must crowd 
our water-garden no more than we crowd our 
garden of earth, or our air-garden in the orchid 
house. And the tendency is not only to put in 
plants which are too large for their setting, but 
too many varieties. For pools of any size, how- 
ever, we are always safe in the use of the pond- 
lily, and it will reach up to the surface from a 
depth of five or six feet, holding to the bottom 
by its long, ropy stalk. The Zanzibar Hly in 
blue, purple and a particularly lovely red is an 
introduction from the East which is much used 
in large grounds and parks. The Egyptian lotus 
and yellow lotus are large for yards, and to 
reach their best estate they require not only 
room but artificial heat, except in our southern 
belt. 

If the pond is natural it has its own basin, 
which can be widened or lessened by digging or 
filling, but if artificial, a bog must be prepared 
for it, and this can be of sods and pebbles, if it 
is a large and informal sheet of water, or if it is a 
mere bowl it can be cemented or bricked and pro- 
vided with an overflow-pipe, which needs a wire 
228 



WATER IN THE GARDEN 

net at the orifice to keep the goldfish from going 
through, and the vegetable refuse from choking 
it at the traps or bends. If cement, mortar, as- 
phalt, paint, stains or other artificial substances 
are used in the lining of the basin, the water 
should stand for a week, with frequent changes, 
before fish or plants are introduced. And while 
a fountain adds to the appearance of life and cer- 
tainly to the beauty of a water-garden, it will 
imperil the vegetation if it is fed from a very 
cold spring, like many that we find among the 
mountains. Pond life is partial to warm, quiet 
water. For this reason, too, it is best to delay 
planting under water till summer has fairly set 
in, and the nympheas, or pond-lilies, may then 
be placed in the bottom soil, or packed into a 
sunken box filled with old manure, old turf and 
earth. The advantage of using a box, which 
should be a yard square and a foot deep, is that 
it can be removed when cold weather begins, for 
so soon as the green is gone and the supply-pipe 
is plugged for the winter, the box becomes un- 
sightly. After planting, the water is to be gently 
admitted, the surface rising by slow advances, 
about a foot in a week, so as to disturb the plants 
229 



LITTLE GARDENS 

as little as possible, but if this involves so much 
roiling of the water as to distress the fish, or if, 
in the absence of fish, mosquitoes threaten to 
breed in the stagnant pool before it rises to the 
level of the overflow-pipe, it is better to let in 
the water at once. Useless to consider the vic- 
torias, with their immense leaves, on which an 
adult may stand in safety, for those giants re- 
quire either a tropical climate or a greenhouse. 
Many of the floating plants, too, the water-hya- 
cinth, water-poppy, water-snowflake and parrot's- 
feather, spread so fast as to threaten the lives of 
the lilies. 

If one lived in a town like Amsterdam, or 
Syracuse, or Chicago, he could have a water- 
garden that should be more than a stone basin, 
and if he lived in no town at all, but near the 
bank of a river that was clear and not subject to 
spring freshets, he might more easily have the 
like. It could be grown to lilies and lotus, or it 
could be kept clear for bathing. In the ruins of 
St. Pierre, the fated town of Martinique, I found 
several marble-lined pools, one of them about 
twenty feet long, and I asked myself why in our 
equally superheated coast towns we could not 



WATER IN THE GARDEN 



have their duplicates, for summer use, at least; 
for we have to admit that in winter a water 
garden is a dreary place, for usually it is neces- 
sary to draw off the contents of the pool in order 
to prevent the swelling volume of the ice from 
cracking the cement. So here is the shadowing 
forth of a dream, but you are to pretend that it 
is midsummer when you study it : 



.^>, 




Fig. 27. 

To use an inconsistency, this is a lazy man's 
resting-place, (lazy men having no occasion to 
rest, merely idle,) and you are to imagine that 
it is surrounded by vine-covered walls; that as 
you sit on one of the benches at the near end, 



16 



231 



LITTLE GARDENS 

you see reflected in the water mirror the marble 
god, athlete, or what not who occupies the ped- 
estal among the shrubbery at the farther; that 
the basin with its goldfish is bordered by cy- 
presses, yews or bays in tubs; that above the 
benches extends a trellis covered with vines — 
grapes, if you want them, for everything is free 
in fancy-land; that from the nearer bed rise the 
color and perfume of such plants as will live in 
partial shade — godetia, lily-of-the-valley, musk 
plant, pansy, anemone, bluebells, phlox divari- 
cata, shooting-star, St. Johnswort and such ferns 
as the maidenhair, lady-fern, oak-fern, cinnamon- 
fern and the noble sword- fern, which in many a 
darkened valley in New England grows head- 
high ; for in the country one may take ferns from 
the fields for his lighted garden, and there are 
ferns by the million in the woods which he can 
abstract for his shady corners. You are also to 
see that roses, lilies and iris gleam among the 
foliage along the farther wall; that noble oaks 
and elms, or a group of solemn pines overlook 
the ground and checker it with transparent shad- 
ows; that birds nest in those trees and make a 
morning and evening melody; and apart from 
232 



WATER IN THE GARDEN 

the sough of wind and the voices of birds and 
insects there are no sounds but the harping of 
water-drops, as they fall from the central foun- 
tain. Here, remote, alone, forgetful of the 
rudeness of the world, living with his books, his 
science, his art, his music, his flowers, will sit the 
recluse and keep his mind warm and serene with 
loveliness. 

Some such a yard as this could also be con- 
trived for seashore cottagers whose premises go 
down to the border of the deep. If they dwelt 
on Cape Ann, or the Maine islands, it would 
not be difficult or costly to blast out a hollow in 
the native rock, fill it with salt water, by means 
of a ditch, or pipes, and in this sheltered lagoon 
to introduce, besides the usual finned swimmers, 
starfish, jellyfish, squids, octopods, anemones, 
lobsters, crabs, shrimps, sandworms and mol- 
lusks, as well as the sea-mosses that sway so 
softly when the water moves. The pool would 
be a veritable place of wonders, and you would 
lie in a boat or on a board above it, studying its 
strange forms by the hour. Have you sailed 
across the sunken gardens in the glass-bottomed 
boats at Santa Catalina? If so, you need no 
233 



LITTLE GARDENS 

urging to add an ocean pool to your estate. 
Though your flower-garden were a tropic blaze 
of color, you would much neglect it to watch the 
mysteries of the deep. 



234 



X 

DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

The decorative material available for a yard 
is not large. At least, it should not be large in 
bulk, and it is not in variety. Passing a shop in 
the metropolis, the other day, I found along the 
walk before it huge capitals of columns, well- 
curbs from Italy, stone benches, marble lions and 
heraldic monsters, and observed that they were 
offered for sale as fitments for gardens. They 
will go to New Jersey and will help some rich 
man to pretend that a fine crop of Roman tem- 
ples and Renaissance palaces has just gone to 
seed on his premises. We may advocate formal- 
ity with a grace, for it is only humanness; but 
there are situations in which it is bombast, or 
hypocrisy, to strew our ground with what ob- 
viously belongs out of it. If we will have them 
in small spaces, then fonts, benches, termini, cap- 
itals, well-curbs, short columns, bases and their 
like are better than large figures, inasmuch as 

235 



LITTLE GARDENS 

they dominate the ground less arrogantly, and 
the ground shows for itself. 

I suppose there is no law against the use of 
Italian wells in American parks, any more than 
I suppose there is a lack of Americans who can 
design American wells for Italian parks, but 
these objects, weighing a ton or two — I am not 
speaking of the designers now, but of their well- 
curbs — require large surroundings and back- 
grounds, not of shrubbery alone, but of stately 
trees; in short, the setting of a large landscape. 
If we have an important tree in the city yard we 
shall always live in the shadow, for there will 
be no room for anything else. Yet a large oak, 
or even a maple, would be no more out of place 
on the spot where we are supposed to dry the 
clothes than a big piece of sculpture would be. 
A statue, unless it is small and simply pedestaled, 
demands room. It subordinates to itself a space 
of three times its greatest dimension. It can be 
exhibited in city squares and parked spaces with 
surroundings of flowers and ornate leafage; in- 
deed, it should have this footing in the natural- 
beautiful, so long as it is out of doors. In a 
small garden we can not dignify a work of art 
236 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

by floriculture to the degree it may deserve, for 
it must serve as a part in a decorative scheme; 
otherwise the surroundings will be such as to 
create a ridiculous contrast between the statue 
and the setting. Imagine, if you please, a 
marble Apollo or a bronze Mercury with a 
whitewashed fence behind, and the clothes hung 
to dry before it. Yet, if we removed the clothes 
and substituted a wall, which comported in solid- 
ity with the material of the statue, the effect 
would be beautiful, provided, to be sure, that in 
our composition we had subdued all to that 
statue : given an important position to it at the 
back or corner, massed flowers about it, arched it 
with vines, made reflections of it in a fountain- 
basin, maybe, led toward it with walks and re- 
peated its upright attitude in vines and potted 
trees, so that it would not stand stark and un- 
supported. Here is a scheme w4ierein the gar- 
den is so subordinated, yet as there are four 
points, either of which could be made focal, the 
figure might with equal fitness be placed at A , 
or B, or C, or D. If placed either at A or C, 
something might be added, for balance' sake, 
since the plan is formal, at the opposite side — a 
237 



LITTLE GARDENS 




Fig. 28. 



bench, a font, a small rockery : nothing of exactly 
equal size, not anything In kind, because two 
pieces of sculpture would be too many for a 
single yard, and it would be carrying formal- 
ism to monotony to repeat one corner in its 
opposite. 

In this device are two vistas, and we require 
something at the end of each. If the statue be 
placed at B, then the semilunes that flank it, and 
that end the paths, can be filled with flowering 
shrubs of some size and showiness, not forget- 
ting that the statue itself will require greenery, 
for white and green make the one brisk contrast 
that is esthetic. Its pedestal will be high enough 
238 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

merely to lift it into view, a couple of feet suf- 
ficing for a life-size figure. Statuary is raised on 
lofty bases only when it is desired to make it 
" tell " at a distance. It would be the twelve- 
foot height of absurdity to put a twelve-foot 
pedestal under any figure with which we sought 
to ornament our yard. Mounted in that fashion 
its place would be the front of a capitol or city 
hall. And mind, I am rather insisting that while 
there may be a statuette there shall be no statue, 
unless there is a wall for a background, and we 
do not build many walls in this country. I can 
remember hardly a dozen on the island of Man- 
hattan, that surround estates of consequence, 
though I do recall some ancient defenses of the 
sort in its upper districts, now gone to rack and 
ruin, through the cutting of new streets and 
subways, the building of elevated roads and via- 
ducts, the appropriation of adjacent fields for 
tenements, and the incoming of that disturbing 
horde which defies the blandishments of soap. 
With such a canvas as any one of these estates 
offered in its best day, what pictures might not 
one create upon It ! May I draw one here, of 
what I would have in this garden of my fancy? 
239 



LITTLE GARDENS 

It is but rudely indicated in these lines, of course, 
but they will help to explain my meaning : 

I will suppose the space, then, to be forty 
by a hundred feet. It shall be commanded by 
a house In which the architectural lines will not 
be extinguished by a mask of brick, but will show 
timber beams and braces, latticed windows and 
vines reaching above its first story. The wide, 
low windows giving on the yard shall often be 
left open, for the view, the perfume and the cool- 
ness. The ground shall be quite surrounded by 
a brick wall eight feet high, for this is my cloister 
of evening meditation. There is plenty of world 
outside, and I shall see it often, but here I with- 
draw from it. A brick wall is cold and trite? 
So it would be if we left it at that, merely; but 
there are to be a stone coping and borders of 
half bricks affording a strong and gritty edge 
to the construction; there is to be a paneled base; 
there are to be a dozen terra-cotta insets with con- 
ventional ornament, like an acanthus-leaf, or any 
such, while at C there is to be an alcove a foot 
or more deep and three feet high, to contain 
some rare exotic, or perhaps no more than an 
urn of stone. Should I have more land, the wall 
240 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

will be pierced at 5 by a gate leading, I hope, 
to fair acres and pleasing rambles; possibly to 
some quiet stream or wood of mystery. This 
gate should be of heavy wood, and either stained 
green, with hand-wrought iron hinges, or, if the 
wood were old enough to have taken on a ripe 
and quiet tone. It would be left of its natural 
color. The wall should be almost hidden by 
vines: sweet pea and morning-glory, where the 
sun shone, honeysuckle, clematis, woodbine, and 
at the back two or three trees should throw an 
afternoon shade over the ground. On top of 
the wall at a farther corner, or, better, built into 
the masonry, would be a bird-house where, if 
possible, some starlings should be domesticated 
and protected. I don't know whether these soft- 
voiced musicians eat bees or not, but If bees dis- 
agree with them there should be a hive some- 
where among the shrubbery, near the back, that 
their tuneful hum might be added to the restful 
whispering of the leafage and the tinkle of water, 
which would spray from a little fountain in the 
pool at the center of the yard. The long beds on 
either side of the walk should be filled with 
flowers, perennials like roses and lilies, beside 
241 



LITTLE GARDENS 

zinnias, marigolds, nasturtiums, Canterbury 
bells, foxgloves, pansies, dahlias, asters and 
chrysanthemums; and where the flowers as- 
sembled thickest, in the farther left corner, I 
would place my statue — an ancient bronze with 
a fine patina, in which the hue soberly yet richly 
varied through yellow green to purplish olive, 
but if I could not have my bronze, then a figure 
in marble, solid and restful in attitude, a pagan 
goddess or a Christian saint: no hurlers of 
spears, or wrestlers, or boxers, or martyrs, or 
dying soldiers, but a figure that stood its ground 
with the firmness of a caryatid. And it should 
not be the prettiness of yesterday, freshly pol- 
ished in an Italian studio-shop, but an old piece 
from Pentelicus, its snow softened to cream, its 
hard shininess gone, its neat chiseling of dra- 
peries blunted by contact with a sometime admir- 
ing, sometime forgetful world. At the opposite 
end of the cross-walk would be an easy bench, 
not an affair of roots glued over a framework of 
carpentry, the product of a town factory, but an 
honestly fashioned seat of hewn timber, circling 
or half circling the tree trunk, if the tree were 
big enough to justify and support it. One thing 
242 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

this bench would not be, and that is, a cast-iron 
copy of a so-called rustic seat. A chair or bench 
might be made of iron, yet be artistic, therefore, 
honest, and it might fit into a garden scheme. 
Maybe if this were suggested to a Japanese de- 
signer he could produce one. But why should 
the iron pretend to be wood, any more than wood 
masquerade as iron? Let us have homely frank- 
ness about us, rather than supposedly ornate 
sham — for, as a matter of fact, sham is seldom 
ornate. I do not admire those beds, designed 
for New York flats, that are folded up by day, 
when they pretend to be innocent ice-chests, 
pianos and sideboards. Every observer knows 
them for designing and insomnious frauds. I do 
not admire chromos that affect to be real oil- 
paintings, done by hand, nor Philadelphia rugs 
that make believe to have been woven in Shiraz, 
nor coffee that grew on chicory, nor wine com- 
posed of dye and vinegar, nor milk compounded 
of chalk and water, nor any other thing that goes 
through the form of being better than it is. Sand 
in its place is useful, even beautiful, but its place 
is not inside of the sugar-bowl. And so I would 
avoid in and about the garden all those pretenses 
243 



LITTLE GARDENS 

In which we observe a gross and ridiculous dis- 
parity of material and appearance, or of func- 
tion and effect. I would not, for example, sus- 
pend a gypsy kettle from three sticks and plant 
heliotrope therein, making believe to boil this 
herb over a slow fire which causes the blossoms 
to emerge, in place of smoke. It is quite permis- 
sible to string a hammock in the angle of the 
wall. Your naps and contortions will not be 
exhibited to the neighbors. 

The arms of the Maltese cross, to which you 
will trace some likeness in the plan, are lawns, 
and these should be leveled by persistent rolling 
and kept as green, fresh and unmixed with any- 
thing other than grass and clover as sound seed, 
fresh water and a diligent war on weeds can 
make them. Every weed removed gives so much 
the more space for grass, and in time a carpet is 
formed into which interloping thistles, dande- 
lions and ragweed find it increasingly hard to 
penetrate. For association's sake I would edge 
the gravel walks that intersect the ground with 
box, and keep it in borders not over twenty inches 
high, always neatly trimmed, and green all 
through the year. At the points of the lawns 
244 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

should be placed tubs of oak with Iron handles,- 
for here is legitimate use of metal, and those 
vessels should contain thick-growing little trees 
or solid-looking bushes. If all the trees were 
hemlocks, yews and spruces, so much the better, 
as they repeat and intensify, yet harmonize, the 
upright lines of the statue and the house sides, 
and increase their altitude, if there are not too 
many of them; for an upright by itself is taller 
than in company, just as Niagara, because of its 
breadth, loses the height which would be readily 
apparent if we took any ten- foot span of the cata- 
ract, and closed it in with rock. And these 
tubbed trees should be darkly, serenely green, 
standing with an air of some fixity, like the statue 
and other fitments, and contrasting pleasantly 
with the large and fluent forms of the maples, 
magnolias, elms, lindens or gingkos that over- 
hung the wall at the back. If these taller, 
rounder trees grew really outside of the walls, it 
would be pleasanter than if they grew within, 
for the space is so small that it would be a hard- 
ship to sacrifice it, even for a tree, especially 
when all the picturesquencss of the latter could 
be effected without putting the stem on the hither 
245 



LITTLE GARDENS 

side of our boundaries. The space indicated for 
trees in the plan could be filled by such bushes as 
the syringa, lilac, laurel, weigelia and the larger 
or taller growing roses. The pool should be of 
clearest water, led from a mountain spring, and 
containing a few lilies — only a few, because one 
would wish to look at the fish swimming beneath 
the pads, for if there were no fish there would be 
mosquitoes, unless there were a current so strong 
that those pests desisted from laying their eggs 
on the surface, in which case it would be too 
agitated for the successful raising of lilies, and 
the fish might grow discontented, also. 

If there were no pool and no statue, a clump 
of tall, feathery grass, such as we have brought 
from the South American pampas, or an urn 
filled with the Kenilworth ivy, a fast and easy 
grower, would serve as decorative points — hubs 
for the radii of our composition. Or, at B we 
could train an arch of roses or other vines, prefer- 
ably an arch of wood or bamboo, yet permissibly 
of wire net, for this wire tells what it is made of, 
and does not pretend to be porcelain, sandal- 
wood or mahogany. And if there is a vase, let 
it be of stone or pottery, not of cement; this not 
246 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL' 

alone for appearance' but for endurance' sake. 
Cement has its uses, as In the casing of the pool, 
but the making of gravestones, urns and statu- 
ary from this material is forbidden by the law 
of esthetics. Have you ever looked upon a 
statue of cement? If so, it is too solemn a spec- 
tacle to forget. Don't have anything in the gar- 
den that is molded by machinery, unless it may be 
drain-pipes. Let the work show the touch of 
the human hand, and let it be a duplicate of 
nothing that exists elsewhere. Yet, if there were 
a city ordinance that compelled me to have a 
statue in the yard, and I found after a search 
through my garments that I had not the price of 
a Venus of Milo in marble — a discovery sure to 
fill me with astonishment — I would doubtless 
buy a figure of plaster; for the Italians make 
faithful and artistic copies in this cheap medium. 
They are good enough for our museums and art 
schools, and ought, by that token, to be good 
enough for gardens. Hm ! They are not rained 
on, in the art schools. But if you do set up a 
plaster image, paint it first, just to take off its 
raw whiteness. Use a cream-colored or yellow- 
brown pigment, or even a pale green, and if the 
17 247 



LITTLE GARDENS 

figure is chipped, cover the chipped place with 
another touch of the color. 

I think I have not mentioned Japanese lan- 
terns as garden possibilities. They are alien 
enough, to be sure, yet they are quaint and deco- 
rative, and more modest than the importations 
from Italian palaces and convents with which so 
many owners of palaces tiy to foreignize the 
landscape of New York and Massachusetts. I 
am not speaking of those paper lanterns, gay and 
pretty ornaments, familiar to lawn-parties — 
luminous flowers of the night — but of the stone 
and metal inventions that are used in and about 
the temples of Japan, They stand on pedestals, 
somewhat like binnacles on shipboard, they have 
overhanging roofs like pagodas, and they may 
contain lamps or candles. Their little windows, 
softly shining through leaves, suggest the com- 
forting lights of home. These devisements are 
works of art, and while there is a similarity in 
their construction, each is an individual conceit; 
that it is which makes them art. Much gilded, 
trifling, insincere ornament is made for garden 
use, but it behooves us to be content with simple 
things and let our walks through little kingdoms 
248 



DECORATIVE MATERIAL 

teach constancy and simplicity. My garden 
should have those things that are sweetly famil- 
iar, unexcitant, of conceded loveliness. 

The best of the garden, however, is what you 
put into it, rather than what comes out of it. 
It is the satisfaction of your tastes, and the bet- 
tering of them, the thought and sentiment you 
express in planting and gathering, the innocence 
and quiet of mind that you take to the seeding, 
trimming and watering, that are the real re- 
wards. In time the garden comes to mean a part 
of yourself, just as your pictures and your library 
are a part, and it will be modest or bombastic, 
delicate or vulgar, trivial or sincere, ingenuous 
or artificial, according as you possess those qual- 
ities. As it flourishes it may disclose a broad 
mind and generous nature, or it may prove in its 
dryness and ill feeding, a habit of pelf and a 
grudging of care. If it is worth while to have 
a garden at all, it is probably worth while to 
have one that will humble the neighbors; but 
this does not imply mere show : it implies content 
with your work and enjoyment of what you have. 
I often wonder If content is not one of the lost 
arts, at least, among the residents of towns. I 
249 



LITTLE GARDENS 

believe it has a close relation to the art of gar- 
dening. I ought to have said, the craft of gar- 
dening, for if we look on this employment as an 
art, our pleasure in it may be the higher, yet L 
fear it will be the narrower. We can treat the 
flower-bed as we would paint a picture or shape 
a statue ; we can make it poetic and endow it with 
fine and sensitive qualities, and we should do so; 
but it is best as a broad and intimate human ex- 
pression. We may not approve a garden, but 
if the motive in creating it has been sincere, if It 
indicates a love of the beautiful and a reverence 
for life, we must respect it, for in doing so we 
respect Its maker. 

(1) 

THE END 



2^0 



TWENTIETH CENTURY TEXT-BOOKS OF BOTANY. 



By JOHN M. COULTER, A.M., Ph.D., 

Head of Department of Botany, University of Chicaf:o. 

Plant Relations. A First Book of Botany. i2mo. 
Cloth, $i.io. 

"Plant Relations " is the first part of the botanical section of Biology, and, as its 
title indicates, treats what might be termed the human interests of plant life, the con- 
ditions under which plants grow, their means of adaptation to environments, how 
they protect themselves from enemies of various kinds in their struggle for existence, 
their habits individually and in family groups, and their relations to other forms of 
life — all of which constitute the economic and sociological phases of plant study. 

Plant Structures. A Second Book of Botany. i2mo. 

Cloth, $1.20. 

This volume treats of the structural and morphological features of plant life and 
plant growth. It is intended to follow " Plant Relations," but may precede this 
book, and either may be used independently for a half-year's work in botanical study. 

Plant Studies. An Elementary Botany. i2mo. Cloth, 

This book is designed for those schools in which there is not a sufficient allot- 
ment of time to permit the development of plant Ecology and Morphology as outlined 
in "Plant Relations" and "Plant Structures," and yet which are desirous of im- 
parting instruction from both points of view. 

Plants. A Text-Book of Botany. i2mo. Cloth, $1.80. 

Manv of the high schools as well as the smaller colleges and seminaries that 
devote one year to botanical work prefer a single volume covering the complete course 
of study. For their convenience, therefore, " Plant Relations," and "Plant Struc- 
tures" have been bound together in one book, under the title of "Plants." 



Anatyiical Keys to Flomjering Plants, i2mo. Limp Cloth, 
Northern States. By Professor Coulter. 25c. 

Pacific Slope. By Prof. W. L. Jepson, University of 
California. 45c. 

Rocky Mountain Regions. By Prof. Aven Nelson, 
University of Wyoming. 45c. 

These Keys may be used with any text-book of botany, but they have references 
to the text of Professor Coulter's books. 

A Laboratory Manual of Botany. By Otis W. Cald- 
well, Ph.D., State Normal School, Charleston, 111. 50c. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO. LONDON. 



GEORGE H, ELLWANGER'S BOOKS. 

The Garden's Story ; or, Pleasures and Trials 
of an Amateur Gardener. 

With Head and Tail Pieces by Rhead. i6mo. Cloth, 
$1.50. 

"A dainty, learned, charming, and delightful book." — New York Sun. 

" One of the most charming books of the season. . . . This little volume, printed 
in excellent taste, is redolent of garden fragrance and garden wisdom. ... It is in 
no sense a text-book, but it combines a vast deal of information with a great deal 
of out-of-door observation, and exceedingly pleasant and sympathetic writing about 
flowers and plants." — Christian Union. 

"This dainty nugget of horticultural lore treats of the pleasures and trials of an 
amateur gardener. From the time when daffodils begin to peer and the 'secret of 
the year' comes in to mid-October, Mr. Ellwanger provides an outline of hardy 
flower-gardening that can be carried on and worked upon by amateurs. . . . Nor is 
the information of this floral calendar confined to the literary or theoretical sides. 
'Plant thickly; it Is easier and more profitable to raise flowers than weeds,' is a 
practical direction from the garden syllabus." — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

The Story of My House. 

With an Etched Frontispiece by Sidney L. Smith, and 
numerous Head and Tail Pieces by W, C. Grcenough. 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

"When the really perfect book of its class comes to a critic's hands, all the words 
he has used to describe fairly satisfactory ones are inadequate for his new purpose, 
and he feels inclined, as in this case, to stand aside and let the book speak for itself. 
In its own way, it would be hardly possible for this daintily printed volume to do 
better." — A rt A niatcur. 

"An essay on the building of a house, with all its kaleidoscopic possibilities in 
the way of reform, and its tantalizing successes before the fact, is always interest- 
ing ; and the author is not niggardly in the good points he means to secure. . . . 
The book aims only to be agVeeable ; its literary flavor is pervasive, its sentiment 
kept well in hand." — New York Evening Post. 

In Gold and Silver. 

With Illustrations by W. Hamilton Gibson, A. B. Wen- 
zell, and W. C. Greenough. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. Edi- 
tion de Luxe, on Japanese vellum, $5.00. 

"One of the handsomest gift-books of the year." — Philadelphia Inquirer. 

" After spending a half-hour with ' In Gold and Silver,' one recalls the old say- 
ing, 'Precious things come in small parcels.' " — Christian Intelligencer. 

"The whole book is eminently interesting, and emphaticaily deserving of the 
very handsome and artistic setting it has received." — Netv \'ork Tribune. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



BOTANY. 

Morphology of Gymnosperms. 

By John Merle Coulter, Ph.D., Head of 
Department of Botany, The University of Chicago, 
and Charles James Chamberlain, Instructor in 
Botany, The University of Chicago. Illustrated. 
8vo. Cloth, 1 88 pages. $1.75. 

The G3'mnosperms, as the most primitive seed 
plant, are of special morphological importance, and 
are very inadequate!}^ presented in current general 
texts. This book brings together and organizes the 
widely scattered results of investigation. It is not 
a compilation, but a combination of published results, 
supplemented and guided by several years of original 
investigation. The authors have sought to disen- 
tangle and simplify a confused terminology which 
has heretofore obscured a very consistent mor- 
phology. The essential morphology of the great 
groups is considered in detail, the fossil forms are 
represented in the light of recent important dis- 
coveries, the comparative morphology of the group 
as a whole is discussed, and the part closes with 
chapters on phylogeny and geographic distribution. 
The illustrations are numerous and the majority of 
them are original. The book is addressed to special 
students of morphology, of the evolution of the plant 
kingdom, and of the paleobotany. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO. LONDON. 



BOTANY. 



Morphology of Angiosperms. 

By John Merle Coulter, Ph.D., Head of 
Department of Botany, The University of Chicago, 
and Charles James Chamberlain, Instructor in 
Botany, The University of Chicago. Illustrated. 
8vo. Cloth. 348 pages. $2.50. 

This volume has grown out of a course of lectures 
accompanied by laboratory work, given for several 
successive years to classes of graduate students pre- 
paring for research. It seeks to organize the scattered 
amount of material so that it may be available in 
compact and related form. While careful attention 
has been given to citations, so that the student may 
know the groups that have been investigated and be 
put in touch with the original papers, the work is in 
no sense a com])ilation. The ground has been trav- 
ersed repeatedly, for several years, by various 
members of the botanical staff and by numerous 
students, and their results have served to check cvu"- 
rent statements, as well as to contribute no small 
amount of new material. 

No attempt has been made to present the details 
of floral structure, so fully described by the earlier 
morphologists and taxonomists. since they are easily 
accessible in numerous texts. It has rather been the 
intention to present the general ideas involved in the 
alliances of first rank, so that principles rather than 
details may be prominent. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

new YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO. LONDON. 



By WILLIAM C. EDGAR. 
The Story of a Grain of Wheat. 

By William C. Edgar, Editor of " The North- 
western Miller." Illustrated. Cloth, $i.oo net ; post- 
age, lo cents additional. 

The story of wheat is a marvelous one, and is here 
told with all the interest of a narrative. A short chapter 
dealing with the character of the berry itself, and its ene- 
mies, diseases, and pests, precedes its earlier history from 
its probable birthplace in the valley of the Euphrates to 
its cultivation in modern times. Then follows a review 
of Britain's supplies and requirements, with a brief review 
of the fields of France, Germany, and other European 
countries. India is considered as a wheat producer, and 
Russia's ability to compete in the world's markets is dis- 
cussed. 

This book will merit the attention of the general 
reader who may not be practically interested in wheat 
and its products, because of its direct and lucid narrative, 
telling the story which appeals to all human kind — the 
story of man's long-continued struggle for plenty and his 
final triumph over savagery and want. Its special and 
exceptional value, however, beyond its intrinsic worth, 
will be to those who are concerned directly or remotely 
in the making of flour, its handling and sale, or its man- 
ufacture into bread. By these it wnll be welcomed as a 
book of record and reference, an exponent of the funda- 
mental principles of their particular industry and an im- 
partial history of its achievements, written by one who is 
in full sympathy with its broader and higher aspirations. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



WHERE TREES GROW, THERE HUMAN 
SYMPATHY LINGERS. 

Practical Forestry. 

A Book for the Student and for all who are practically- 
interested, and for the General Reader. By Prof. John 
GiFFORD, New York State College of Forestry, Cornell 
University. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.20 net ; post- 
age, 12 cents additional. 

The recent establishment of the Bureau of Forestry at Wash- 
ington, the steps taken in different States for forest protection, 
and the movement for national forest reservations which began a 
few years since, are tangible evidences of the increasing interest 
in a subject of immediate and general importance. The need of 
popular information regarding this subject, presented in a form 
comprehensive and practical but interesting, has prompted Pro- 
fessor Gifford to prepare this book. It is based upon actual 
experience as well as scientific knowledge, and also upon an 
acqaintance with the needs of the many different classes of those 
interested in the forests for economic or partially sentimental 
reasons. 

The author explains simply and clearly the points of practical 
interest relating to soil, growth of trees, their care, their relation 
to the water supply, the evils of wholesale cutting, and the prac- 
tical value of judicious selection. He places before the reader, 
in his sketch of forest distribution, a most interesting picture of 
American woodlands, which emphasizes the importance of a 
source not only of wealth, but of safety, much neglected in past 
years. 

Aside from the value of this book to special students and to 
those interested in the forests for economic reasons, the work is 
full of suggestions to owners of country homes and to all who 
care for nature. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



OLDEST OF THE ARTS, NEWEST OF THE 
SCIENCES. 



Practical Agriculture. 

By Charles C James, M. A., Deputy Minister of 
Agriculture for Ontario, formerly Professor of Chemistry 
at the Ontario Agricultural College. American Edition, 
edited by John Craig, Professor of Horticulture in the 
Iowa Agricultural College. With numerous Illustrations. 
i2mo. Cloth, 80 cents. 

This excellent book shows how easy, interesting, and prac- 
tical the teaching of agriculture in common schools really is. It 
imparts a knowledge of the science of Agriculture as distinct 
from the art — that is, a knowledge of the why rather than of the 
how. This science consists of a mingling of chemistry, geology, 
botany, entomology, physiology, bacteriology, etc. The founda- 
tion principles of these subjects have been included and their 
applications clearly and suggestively shown. 

Professor James gives his subject the broadest interpretation. 
Agriculture is for him the cultivation of the soil for food products 
and any other useful growths of the field or garden. It includes 
tillage, husbandry, farming in general, and any industry practised 
by a cultivator of the soil, as breeding, rearing, dairying, etc. 

Governor JAMES A. MOUNT, Indianapolis, Ind. : 

" 1 would that such works were in every farm home. They would g;ive 
the farmer a broader view of his vocation. He would view it as an art, a 
science, a profession, and not as mere drudgery, requiring manual labor 
instead of mental activity." 

A. "W. RANKIN, Inspector State Graded Schools, Minneapolis: 

" I think James's ' Practical Agriculture' is the best book I have seen on 
this subject. 1 heartily approve of its purpose, and shall urge its use wher- 
ever an opportunity offers." 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK- 



By R SCHUYLER MATHEWS. 



Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden. 

New edition. With 12 orthochromatic photographs of characteristic 

flowers by L. W. Brownell, and over 200 drawings by the Author, 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.40 net ; postage, 18 cents additional. 

The new photography's revelations of nature have found perfect expression in 
Mr. BrowncU's remarkable pictures. The beautiful series included in this new edition 
will be appreciated by every one, and prized by students and nature-lovers. 

Familiar Trees and their Leaves. 

New edition. With pictures of representative trees in colors, and over 

200 drawings from nature by the Author. Witii the botanical name 

and hal)itat of each tree and a record of the precise character and color 

of its leafage. 8vo. Cloth, $1.75 net ; postage, 18 cents additional. 

Mr. Mathews has executed careful and truthful paintings of characteristic trees, 
which have been admirably reproduced in colors. The great popularity of his finely 
illustrated and useful book is familiar to nature-lovers. The new edition in colors 
forms a beautiful and indispensable guide to a knowledge of foliage and of trees. 

Familiar Life in Field and Forest. 

With many Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" A very attractive bo ik, which contains a mass of useful information and curious 
anecdote." — San J-rancisco Ckronicle. 

" The book is one that is apt to please the young naturalist, as it is not over- 
crowded with scientific words of such dimensions as are usually a bugbear to the 
young student. The information is given in a pleasant way that is attractive as well 
as instructive." — Minneapolis Tribune. 

Familiar Features of the Roadside. 

With 130 Illustrations by the Author. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

"Which one of us, whether afoot, awheel, on horseback, or in comfortable carriage, 
has not whilcd away the time by glancing about? How many of us, however, have 
taken in the details of what charms us? We Fee the flowering fields and budding 
woods, listen to the notes of birds and frogs, the hum of some big bumblebee, but how 
much do we know of what we sense? These questions, these doubts have occurred to 
all of us, and it is to answer them that Mr. Mathews sets forth. It is to his credit that 
he succeeds so well. He puts before us in chronological order the flowers, birds, and 
beasts we meet on our highway and byway travels, tells us how to recognize them, 
what they are really like, and gives us at once charming drawings in words and lines, 
for Mr. Mathews is his own illustrator." — Boston Journal. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



BOTANY. 



The Plant World : Its Romances and Realities. 

A Reading-Book of Botany. Compiled and Edited 
by Frank Vincent, M.A., author of "Actual Africa," 
"Around and About South America," etc. (Appletons' 
Home-Reading Books.) Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, 60 cents. 



The Origin of Floral Structures through Insects 
and Other Agencies. 

By the Rev. George Henslow, Professor of Botany, 
Queen's College, London. (International Scientific Series.) 
With numerous illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" The object of this work is to endeavor to refer every part of the 
structure of flowers to some one or more definite causes arising from the 
environment taken in its widest sense. To some extent the attempt 
must be regarded as speculative ; and, therefore, any deductive or 
d priori reasonings met with must be considered by the reader as being 
suggestive only." — The Author. 

The Oak: A Popular Introduction to Forest- 
Botany. 

By H. Marshall Ward, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. With 
53 illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

As so often happens in the study of science, we have in the oak a 
subject for investigation which presents features of intense interest at 
every turn. It will be found that the story of the oak as an object of 
biological study is at least not less fascinating than its folk-lore. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



BOTANY. 

A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Seedlings. 

By Sir John Lubbock, Bart. 684 illustrations. 2 vols. 
8vo. Cloth, $10.00. 

The germination of plants is certainly not the least interesting 
portion of their life history, but it has not as yet attracted the attention 
it deserves. It seems surperfluous to say that the subject has received a 
thorough and careful treatment by Mr. Lubbock, who has contributed a 
most valuable work to the world of science. 

The Origin of Cultivated Plants. 

By Alphonse de Candolle. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

The knowledge of the origin of cultivated plants is interesting to 
agriculturists, to botanists, and even to historians and philosophers con- 
cerned with the davvnings of civilization. This book treats of the origin 
of almost double the number of species belonging to the tropics and the 
temperate zones that were treated of in the author's first work on 
geographical botany. It includes almost all plants that are cultivated, 
either on a large scale for economic purposes or in orchards and kitchen 
gardens. 

" Though a fact familiar to botanists, it is not generally known how 
great is the uncertainty as to the origin of many of the most important 
cultivated plants In endeavoring to unravel the matter a knowl- 
edge of botany, of geography, of geology, of history, and of philosophy 
is required. By a combination of testimony derived from these sources 
M. de Candolle has been enabled to determine the botanical origin 
and geographical source of the large proportion of species he deals 
with." — The AthencEum. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



BOOKS ON BOTANY. 



A Study of Leaves. 

By Mary B. Dennis. Small 4to. In colors. Paper, 
50 cents. 

The first laudable effort to popularize a science the technical terminology 
of which forms perhaps the chief obstacle to its wide diffusion. It shorthands 
botany. 

The Geological History of Plants. 

By Sir J. William Dawson, F.R.S. Illustrated. 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

The object of this work is to give, in a connected form, a summary of the 
development of the vegetable kingdom in geological time. To the geologist 
and botanist the subject is one of importance with reference to their special 
pursuits, and one on which it has not been easy to find any convenient manual 
of information. It is hoped that its treatment in the present volume will also 
be found sufficiently simple and popular to be attractive to the general reader. 

Botany. ■* 

A Concise Manual for Students of Medicine and Science. 
By Alexander Johnstone, F.G.S. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

This work is an attempt to construct a useful text-book for learners who 
are, or who have been, members of a class in botany. 

Fungi : Their Nature and Uses. 

By M. C. Cooke. Edited by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

Handbook of Tree-Planting ; or, Why to Plant, 

What to Plant, How to Plant. 

By Nathaniel H. Egleston, late Chief of Forestry 
Division, Department of Agriculture, Washington. i6mo. 
Cloth, 75 cents. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



POPULAR BOTANY. 



The Folk-Lcre of Plants. 

By T. F. Thiselton Dyer, M.A. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

A useful handbook for those desirous of gaining some information, 
in a brief, concise form, of the folk-lore of the vegetable kingdom. 

"A handsome and deeply interesting volume. ... In all respects 
the book is excellent. Its arrangement is simple and intelligible, its 
style bright and alluring. . . . To all who seek an introduction to 
one of the most attractive branches of folk-lore, this delightful volume 
may be warmly commended." — Notes afid Queries. 

Flowers and Their Pedigrees. 

By Grant Allen. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

These essays deal with the evolution of certain plant types in gen- 
eral, and the causes of their existence in restricted localities. 

" No writer treats scientific subjects with so much ease and charm of 
style as Mr. Grant Allen. The study is a delightful one, and the book is 
fascinating to anyone who has either love for flowers or curiosity about 
them." — Ha>tfo7-d Courant. 

" Anyone with even a smattering of botanical knowledge, and with 
either a heart or mind, must be charmed with this collection of essays." 
— Ch icago Even ing Journal. 

The Story of the Plants. 

By Grant Allen. With Many Illustrations. i6mo. 
Cloth, 35 cents net; postage, 4 cents additional. 

A short and succinct account of the principal phenomena of plant life, 
in language suited to the comprehension of unscientific readers. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 

34 7- 9 



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